On this first day of 2009, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the CMS Watch list of predictions for 2009. Getting big play in the top 3 is “Taxonomies are dead. Long live metadata!”.
With social computing coming to the fore, it’s never been more obvious that everyone does not, and will never, categorize things in the same way. It doesn’t even matter what’s correct anymore… I will assert that the days of the traditional, definitive, and single-hierarchy taxonomy are long behind us.
I think that this is accurate — insofar as it uses the traditional, definitive and single-dimension definition of taxonomy that I agree ought to be left in the dust along with corded telephones and dot matrix printers. I mean, I can’t even remember ever building a taxonomy that was meant to be traditional or had a single-hierarchy.
The term “taxonomy” has grown to mean so much more than this… We use taxonomy in a very broad sense – suggesting that all metadata comes from the taxonomy. Everything is about classification and structure. Certainly “taxonomy” has become an abused term. The say taxonomy when they want their information world to be a better place. There is a comforting, ordered ring to the term. It sets all things in the world in their proper place.
The fact of the matter is business people don’t get metadata. Sure, they know it’s “information about information”, but start a sentence with metadata and watch their eyes glaze over. It’s an abstraction, its technical, its stuff that they can’t connect with. It’s best left to IT. Don’t bother them with that sort of stuff. It sounds like something that will bore them or extra work that won’t bring in more revenue… at least taxonomy sounds kind of mysterious. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the sentiment: I heart metadata. I have the t-shirt. But I won’t put stock in it becoming the new buzzword.
For whatever reason, people can relate to taxonomy. That’s what they need. They want order, not mess and chaos (despite all the web 2.0ness out there – order eventually emerges from the chaos). The old way of defining taxonomy – as a strict uber hierarchy is definitely dead. The new way is more like an ecosystem. Things change and evolve, but there are principles and constraint. Then knowledge evolves and value emerges.
CMS Watch should not be predicting the death of taxonomy, but the evolution of taxonomy.
BUT, don’t take my word for it. I thought I’d pose the question to my network of peers on the Taxonomy Community of Practice. Ok, not exactly an unbiased survey (kind of like asking a room full of dentists if they belive in flossing), but I will post again in a week’s time with a collection of the responses here. Let’s see what a virtual room of almost 1000 taxonomists think… stay tuned!
(co-authored by Seth Earley)
Filed under: Tagging / Folksonomy, Taxonomy | Tagged: analysts, CMS Watch, metadata, predictions, Taxonomy, traditional
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[...] CMS Watch predicts death of taxonomy Posted on January 1, 2009 by stephanielemieux [...]
I agree with your statements. Our latest analysis highlights the same growing need for faceted controlled lists in the e-pub vertical. More here: http://www.nstein.com/en/pressreleases/400.php
I think you may want to consider the value of microformatting in your discussion on whether taxonomy is alive, ailing or dead. Taxonomy is simply expanding in its tools to include metadata principles with ever more specific tools to assist in managing information.
Seth and Stephanie,
Thanks for posting a much more reasonable and rational reply to my prediction than some other people.
I value your expertise and input, as you know, and thank you for respecting mine (unlike some other people 
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I don’t completely agree, however, that business people don’t get metadata. I think they do, I just don’t think many of them understand how technology use it and why it’s important. Taxonomists aren’t techies, that’s for sure. I worked with so many IAs and taxonomists who just didn’t want to understand how a CMS or a search engine works under the hood.
Sure, I could have easily predicted the evolution of taxonomy, but that’s a lot more boring, and I sincerely doubt people would be writing about it or getting all worked up over it as they are. I’m challenging people very deliberately. As we’ve discussed, technology is getting better at automatic metadata-generation, and many search and text mining tools are improving their capability to find, categorize and display data without a human being’s intervention. In some ways, that’s a death blow to taxonomies. It doesn’t mean taxonomists are out of a job. It’s just that taxonomists need to reinvent things more dramatically than I think they’re willing to, because it means admitting that a lot of the baseline work that used be done by humans is now better taken care of by technology.
Stephanie,
Just thought I should tell you that I assigned this blog post as required reading for GSLIS 663: Knowledge Taxonomies… lots of great points!
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