It is in fact many things to many people, but really is a form of ‘markup-language’. As I said in an earlier comment to another post, I think the tagging phenomenon on the web really began with html tags, but prior to that, I think the ‘head of the stream’ really occurred around 1967 in Ottawa with William Tunnicliffe’s presentation called “The Separation of Information Content of Documents from their Format” which led to ‘markup-code’ in the publishing and printing industry, then evolved to html in 1989, courtesy of Tim Berners-Lee.

So, tagging is a highly dynamic variant of markup language, therefore it is essentially ‘linguistic/semantic’ in origin (and is still) and not a technology as such.

As to how the ‘disruptive path’ for tagging may manifest itself… I don’t see that as necessarily being non-commercial. I think tags can be an integral part of a disruptive innovation in the commercial sphere.

It is in fact many things to many people, but really is a form of ‘markup-language’. As I said in an earlier comment to another post, I think the tagging phenomenon on the web really began with html tags, but prior to that, I think the ‘head of the stream’ really occurred around 1967 in Ottawa with William Tunnicliffe’s presentation called “The Separation of Information Content of Documents from their Format” which led to ‘markup-code’ in the publishing and printing industry, then evolved to html in 1989, courtesy of Tim Berners-Lee.

So, tagging is a highly dynamic variant of markup language, therefore it is essentially ‘linguistic/semantic’ in origin (and is still) and not a technology as such.

As to how the ‘disruptive path’ for tagging may manifest itself… I don’t see that as necessarily being non-commercial. I think tags can be part of a disruptive innovation in the commercial sphere.

FYI – I mistakenly published a draft version of this posting. [Allow me to note that at the time, I was literally sitting in the middle of a five party argument about whether or not my desk had been assigned weeks ago to another group in an office re-org, meaning I needed to relocate immediately to keep my client's physical space move on schedule. Ah, the joys of consulting...]

The discussion of fit between open source software’s evolution and the punctuated equilibrium model was intended to address KatB’s comments rather than yours. I’ve moved it accordingly. That and some additional updates should make this correctly published version clearer overall.

On to your comments.

My contention is that rather than being seen as an over-hyped new technology with uncertain commercial prospects, as is typical when using Gartner’s Hype Cycle frames, tagging is currently in a period of apparent quietude in growth that reflects genuine innovation ‘below the waterline’. (See Gene Smith’s update on recent changes at LibraryThing, titled Is Tagging Stuck? Hardly. as an example of ongoing innovation that supports this view).

In fact, tagging is currently at one stage of the natural growth path for a(ny) technology that we can understand more completely using punctuated equilibrium as a model. This model, borrowed from biology, seems to apply to both the commercial path of software evolution, and the open source path. The model allows us to make some general predictions about how the growth of tagging will continue. And so I wager a vague guess about continued incremental change over the next 12 months, but wouldn’t put my retirement money on the line. (Maybe someone who reads this blog can set up a prediction market for us…)

To the extent that I’m using it right now, punctuated equilibrium as a model for the evolution of tagging only discusses the rate of growth and change for tagging. I’m not using punctuated equilibrium to address the question of whether tagging is or will be disruptive. In predicting incremental trajectories, I’m following the model based on my understanding of where tagging is at the moment.

The question of the current state of growth and development of tagging is – at least at this stage of the conversation – independent of the question of whether tagging itself is disruptive, or is part of a larger disruption. The two questions address different levels of the environment; tagging in specifc, vs. the overall state of the ecosystem. As I see it, whether or not tagging is a disruptive innovation depends on changes at the level of the larger IT ecosystem, and not current state (fast growth or slow, innovation or diffusion) or the path that tagging follows. Tagging could follow the open source path, the commercial path, or both, and end up being either disruptive regardless.

You (seem to) mention the possibility of tagging following another disruptive path here:

My point was that the trajectories you were predicting seemed to be incremental rather than disruptive. In observing this, I am not implying that you should have predicted a disruptive path, but rather that by not including this as a third option, it is perhaps conspicuous by its absence.

What would a third / disruptive path look like – one neither open source, nor commercial, but something else? Dion Hinchcliffe talks about the mashup as a possible new model for software creation in Mashups: The next major new software development model?. Is this an example of what you had in mind for a disruptive path? (Briefly returning to punctuated equilibrium as a model, it seems the same pattern is in effect with the growth and innovation of the mashup; this is a stage of rapid innovation, and very small diffusion / adoption.)

Regarding whether tagging will prove to be disruptive to the IT ecosystem and how we might determine that, I have another posting in progress that posits three major characteristics of disruptive innovations. I’ll try not to release a draft by mistake…

You responded to my comment saying: “Incremental growth along these two paths is what we’re seeing at the moment.”…However in the original piece, you talked of what we can “expect to see” and how the trend “will follow these two paths to varying degrees”. In other words, you were making predictions.

My point was that the trajectories you were predicting seemed to be incremental rather than disruptive. In observing this, I am not implying that you should have predicted a disruptive path, but rather that by not including this as a third option, it is perhaps conspicuous by its absence.

Also, I don’t understand the linkage you are making between tagging and the Open Source/Linux development community. ~ If there are some tag-orientated projects being developed in this way, what is the significance of that to tagging? Is it incidental, or do you see a particular nexus between tagging as a form, with so called open-source methodologies?