Just as the internet allows users to create and share their own media, it is also enabling them to organize digital material their own way, rather than relying on pre-existing formats of classifying information. A December 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that 28% of internet users have tagged or categorized content online such as photos, news stories or blog posts. On a typical day online, 7% of internet users say they tag or categorize online content.
Here are the results of the survey...
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Demographics of Taggers 28% of online Americans say they have tagged content like a photo, a news story or a blog post
Proportion of all Americans in the group who are taggers
- Men 29%
- Women 27%
Race/ethnicity
- White, non-Hispanic 26%
- Black, non-Hispanic 36%
English-speaking Hispanic* 33%
Age
- 18-29 32%
- 30-49 31%
- 50-64 23%
- 65+ 18%
Educational attainment
- High school diploma 24%
- Some college 28%
- College degree + 31%
Household income
- <$30K 28%
- $30K-$49,999 28%
- $50K-$74,999 27%
- $75,000+ 36%
Internet connection at home
- Dial up 23%
- Broadband 38%
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project December 2006 tracking survey. (N for internet users=1,623. Margin of error is ±3%).
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Tagging is done somewhat differently at different websites. Here are some links that illustrate more fully how the tagging process is done:
- At Flickr – a photo sharing site
- At Del.icio.us – a browser bookmarking site
- At Technorati – a blog search engine
- At Furl – a browser tool that allows content to be archived and labeled
- At Yahoo – how tags work in Yahoo’s MyWeb browser feature
- At YouTube – a video-sharing site
- A Wikipedia entry on tagging