Relating to the inspection of entrails for prognostication.

<p>This has been tagging week on my blog. The technology is really exciting and new. A few days ago i discovered [l:http://kevan.org/extispicious|extisp.icio.us] (interestingly the link is not <i>extisp.icio.us</i> it is actually <a href="http://kevan.org/extispicious" title="http://kevan.org/extispicious">http://kevan.org/extispicious</a>, but it would seem that anyone working on things related to tagging wnts to be like <i>del.icio.us</i> with their clever url. It almost seems like the format of the <i>del.icio.us</i> url has become synonymous with tagging. Is <i>del.icio.us</i> becomming a word? meaning, are people using it as a verb the way googling is? In our office we ask "Did you <i>del.icio.us</i> it?") </p> <p>Anyway, <i>extisp.icio.us</i> creates a graphical represenation of your del.icio.us tags. The larger the font, the more the tag is used, the closer 2 tags are to each other, the more often they are used ont he same bookmark.<br /> Check [l:http://kevan.org/extispicious.cgi?name=GregoryHeller|this] out.</p> <p>What is the real use of this technology? (not tagging, but showing tags in this graphical way?) I am not really certain. It definitely is cool though. I suppose that being visual creatures, being able to see our tags might help us to understand better how we are using them. If we have tons of tags that are piled on each other, and then a bunch that are out in the hinterlands, it would mean that we are not tagging strategically, in such a way that we can use faceted search like the [lk:fac.etio.us] technology or the new "add related" tag feature that [lk:del.icio.us] just introduced. These allow you to zero in on smaller and smaller sets of bookmarks.</p> <p>Everytime you refresh, or re-run the extisp.icio.us tool on your del.icio.us (my finger is getting tire fof all these periods…) the picture comes up different, suggesting that there is an "art" compnent of the tool, that the graphical representation of your tags is art in and of itself.</p> <p>The rapid growth of sites and technologies built on the concept of tagging is very impressive. It seems to be spreading like wildfire. Like the first use of this technology on the web was a catalytic event, like the Wright Brothers flying for a few seconds proving it was possible. Now folks have seen the power of tagging and everyone is using it. </p> <p>It also reminds me, odly, of a story I once read or heard ([lk:http://www.deepspace4.com/pages/chemtrails/chemtrailcro/chemtrialcomonfiles/pagesimages/monkey65.htm|and just found using Google!]) about monkeys that were being observed by scientists who would give them yams. These monkeys lived on the beach and the yams would get sandy, one day a young monkey washed off the yam in the ocean and then wa s able to eat it. All the monekys in that colony started doing it and then the behavior was observed in geographically isolated colonies of monkeys. The point of the story is that there is a [w:Collective unconscious] or maybe I mean [w:Collective consciousness]. And the point of my retelling it here is that it would seem like a similar thing happened with tagging. No one was tagging and then it was shown to be a viable technology and now everyone is tagging and building applications that use tagging. And this is what makes it so exciting. It took off so quickly, it seems like it just might be the next killer ap…</p>