Folksonomies: Tidying up Tags looks at what makes folksonomies work. They suggest that tags are no replacement for a formal classification systems, but they see this as being the core quality that makes tagging so useful. They look at the common problem of “sloppy tags”, and ask if the folksonomy community could offset problems by creating systems that are better suited to searching, sorting and classifying.

Ellyssa Kroski has written one of the best articles I have read regarding Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging. This complete look at the topic is an excellent read if you are interested in folksonomies or are integrating tags into your next web application.

Fiftyfour Eleven has a great tutorial that will show you how to use two webservices to add tags to your content. The two part tutorial will show you how to access Yahoo!s and/or Tagyu’s tagging API’s. They are simple services that will recommend tags based on the content that you provide it. In Part 1 you will learn how to use the API’s while part 2 will show you how to retrotag some existing content in your CMS.

A relatively new feature availaible in Ruby on Rails is a Folksonomy GEM that makes adding tagging to your web apps relatively trivial.

More information on the acts_as_taggable plugin can be found at the Rails Wiki.

Information architect Thomas Vander Wal, has a good article titled Tagging for Fun and Finding that discusses the great benefits from tagging if it is done well.

I often have a difficult time explaining exactly what content tagging is, and even when I do explain it really well, most people have a hard time understanding what it’s inherant benefis are. Linda Zimmer has come to the rescue with a nice article titled - Tagging: What is it Good For?