Why @tags will not be the next email

I am still thinking about using @tags as a web wide communication tool. As I was discussing this concept with a VC, the immediate reaction from him was: 'so, this is just like email, but done with @tags rather than email address'.

I didn't gave him a satisfactory reply then but after thinking it through, @tags are definitely different from email.

Distributed vs centralisedEmail communication is confined to a destination. If you think about it, that is like the web portal strategy of the 90s. Since everything is going distributed, why can't targeted communication like email be so? @tags may have the highest chance of becoming the default standard to point to people if Twitter continues to become grow.
Open vs Closed
If @tags are distributed, it also means they are more open. This leaves room for third party to start building useful interfaces that helps us organise our soical conversations. Email innovations are few and far in between because it is closed. Innovations cannot happen freely. If @tags opens up the targeted communication channel, we might see more experiments to solve our problems in communication overload (although distributed systems themselves have a tendency to attract more spam and irrelevant comments).

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Are we done with tagging?

My interest in tagging started way back when Umair Haque was talking about them and how transformative tagging would be.

Instead, people tag things they prefer, and ignore things they think don't prefer. In this way, preferences get implicitly aggregated, and then coordinated. That is, if 400 people tag bubblegen with technology, you might also reasonably suspect a significant proportion of them think it was cool enough to tag, which goes on to coordinate your preferences about bubblegen.

One immediate area when tagging can exert powerful influence is in the area of search. Tags represents an alternate way to find stuff.

At some point, tagging becomes more efficient than search. This point is reached when the number of Google clicks is greater than the number of related tag clicks (or similar proxy). When this happens, tagging becomes a perfect substitute for search.

Creating an alternate search paradigm was also the primary reason why Fred Wilson invested in Delicious. However, that vision was never realised. Delicious was sold to Yahoo and tagging became left by the sideway. I wonder if Delicious had continued, will it have reinvented search, like what Twitter is threatening now? It had the potential. For example, if you look at for tags, it is actually very similar to how the @ function works in Twitter. That in iself is quite a remarkable way of sharing.

Now, the only person I heard rallying about tagging is Marc Canter, who have said that:


We’ve certainly (collectively) dropped the ball on tagging

So, my big question is: are we done with tagging? Does our current services already provide what tagging has to offer or is that unexplored opportunity left by the early acqusition of Delicious?

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How do we create better conversations?

My last post on local startups not leveraging on R&D generate zero comments on this blog. However, over at my facebook profile, lots of people commented on that post, or more specifically, the title of that post. That incident alone generated a few pondering thoughts that I wanted to share here.

The first thought I have was about the portability of conversations. Despite the fact that the comments on my Facebook might be relevant to this blog, there is no way (that I know of) to carry that conversation over here. This reminds me of the discussions on the portability of the social graph a few months back, which is resolved with Friends Connect. I think the same thing needs to happen but this time on our conversation graph.

























Secondly, I was using Twitter like tags to address my comments to different people. This again brings me back to the same point that we need such tags across all services that have a communication component. It will make targeted conversation more convenient and reduce attention costs for the rest of the people for which the comment is irrelevant. Such costs are not trivial. I am beginning to see some smart people talking about the conversation attention costs and what can be done to reduce it.

Finally, beyond sharing conversations, the more important point is how do I then turn the conversation to action? My post has brought me my readers' attention. How then do I turn attention to collective action? That step, to me is a big glaring gap. (VenTwits is a good start)

Conversations and the conversation graph is becomming more important. I think it is worth to spend more time thinking about where this is going.

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Organising conversations

'Markets are conversations'

In my view, that is the most powerful line in the Cluetrain manifesto. Markets have always been about conversations. People talk about stuff and exchange ideas. Traditionally however, these conversations are perishable i.e. once spoken, the conversation is gone. They are also restricted to face to face meeting.

Now with the web and the proliferation of services such as Twitter, Disqus, Backtype, the Facebook Status API etc, we are now able to do much more with our conversations. Ideas can now be stored and referred. Interactions can be searched. Questions can be answered regardless of time. Useful exchanges can be forwarded and shared. This simple fact changes the whole dynamics of conversations and in the process, of markets.

Conversations however creates attention problems i.e. too many people talking about too many things. Structured conversations on the other hand will unleash tons of value. Currently, StockTwit is the forerunner in creating value from organising conversations but that is only the tip of the iceberg:

- When will we go beyond merely aggregating conversations to actively seeding conversations, to alert people to relevant conversations taking place across the Web?

- When we will see the Twitter tags such as @, #, $$ etc being applied to the rest of the Web? When I can be alerted once people has tagged me?

- What other areas of conversations desparately needs organisation? Do we need StockTwits for health, sales, education, entertainment, dating etc?

- How can we better measure the impact of conversations? How can we see the velocity of conversations and the most affluence conversationalists?

There are many more areas left to explore and that is what makes organising conversations such a fertile area for startups.

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The opportunity in blog comments

I have been reading and rereading Umair Haque's paper on user generated context. I have not fully digest its implications but one thing is clear to me: Harnessing context around the content to navigate the abundance of media is going to the key in creating value for users.

Let's take that logic and apply to one of the growing areas in social media: blog comments. How does blog comments help to surface the most interesting blogs? I don't think it might be as obvious as the question suggests.

First of all, let's understand what kind of complementary value does comments add to the blog posts:

• Adds additional perspectives, views et al beyond what was offered by the blog author
• Links to interesting examples or other relevant articles
• Provide facts or numbers that either refute or verify what the author has said

There might be more but I think the above covers a lot of the value that comments provide.

How do any of these help us in surfacing the most interesting blog posts?

Unfortunately, I don't have a direct answer. If you have thoughts on the importance of blog comments as context, do leave a comment.

Related:
If content is King....Context is Kingdom (hat tip to Dr Ramesh)

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