Tagging and Addict-o-matic

On the Web, tags are keywords that users themselves assign to content.  Tags can be used in blogs, photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa, video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo, social bookmarking sites like Delicious, and microblogs like Twitter.  In Twitter, a hashtag is simply a tag with a pound sign or "hash" in front of it, as in #ala10.

There is no central authority or official set of tags, but if many users begin to use the same tag for the same topic across all Web content, the information can be aggregated to a fuller picture of participants' experiences.

One way to view the aggregate all of this content is with a site like Addict-o-matic:

1. Go to http://addictomatic.com
2. Enter a tag (ex: Chile or ala10)
3. Click the Create button. 

A custom page is created based on the tag you entered.  Based on the activity of a particular tag—I tried Chile for one page and ala10 for another—you might have some of the following:

• Twitter "tweets",
• FriendFeed updates,
• Wordpress, Twingly, and Bloglines blog searches,
• Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask.com searches,
• Digg articles,
• Flickr images,
• YouTube and Truveo videos,
• and more!

Here's a Tip: If you are planning an event, like a conference or an open house, use Addict-o-matic, to check to make sure the official tag you want to promote is not being actively used by another group with a very different topic in mind.