Paper Reading #16: Tag Expression: Tagging with Feeling

Comment 1: http://chiblog.sjmorrow.com/2011/03/paper-reading-16-ir-ring-authenticating.html
Comment 2: http://csce436-nabors.blogspot.com/2011/03/reading-15-enabling-beyond-surface.html

Tag Expression: Tagging with Feeling
Jesse Vig, Matthew Soukup, Shilad Sen, John Riedl


This paper was about a new form of tagging for online websites and reviews. Essentially the authors said that the old version of tagging was rather archaic and outdated and there is amny functional improvements that could be made to make this much easier to do and more interactive for the user. They also wanted to make it to where the users who partcipate would actually be able to express how they feel about it and not just put tags that refer to the content. What they found was that the current scheme allows users to tag about the item as whole but does not allow them to comment on particular aspects of the item or really tag about how it made them feel or how it was accepted by a group. In their new version they plan to make tag boxes that have a few different functions: first, they want to have a coloring scheme that allows the users to show that the tags are representing positive, negative, or neutral aspects of the item being tagged. Second, they want the users to be able to direct their tags at different aspects, for example, tagging "exciting" about the movie and "neutral" about the actors. Third, they want to tag box to be interactive so that the user can simply agree with another tag and simply drop the tag into their own tag box, thus making the item appear larger, or add their own unique tag. They performed these experiments over a period of six months and were able to generate nearly thirty two thousand tags about ninety seven different items. What they found was that people enjoyed using their system for its simplicity and were able to fully express things about each aspect as opposed to the item as a while and the rating system given made more sense than previous tagging. They also found that the users enjoyed being able to assocaite the feelings with each tag and were able to give the item an inherent rating based on the tags and the number of people who agree with them. They say that their next step is a generator algorithm that helps the user select what tag they want to add based on entering different words and then finding good associations or simply the users being given a list and they can systematically take out the ones that aren't headed in the correct direction of their feelings.


I thought this article was interesting for a few reasons, first off, I have seen these tag boxes on review sites and movie sites all over the net and never really knew what they meant. Second, I didn't think that there was any real way to read them, I thought it was just a random list of words or advertisements that might help lead you to the site. What I did like was  the idea that you would be able to associate each tag as positive, negative or neutral. I think that just putting a tag is kind of skewed because what one person finds funny another might not so that kind of tag might be misleading. However this is also one of the services that I find might not be something that I am comming back to over and over. I don't really bother with making posts on blogs about movies or even posting on sites talking about what I think the writers and director were trying to say, so this is likely something I would not participate in. I also wonder about the extensibility and after awhile if people would feel the same in that they would eventually stop contributing and that eventually the tags would be a select group of people who enjoy tagging all the time. I think one positive thing is that this might be useful for items like books and websites. If someone were able to look and see what kinds of things the website does and how people respond to them then that might be a major help in finding what you are looking for. I think the idea is really good and solid but it is likely not something I would participate in.