I know many people who don’t get tagging. Do you think tagging is a novelty? Or can you see some persistent value in it that will keep tags around?

I hate tagging. It’s too much work. It’s so much easier to drag and drop an email message into a folder than it is to construct keywords that define its aboutness. And with respect to refindability, using Google Desktop’s full text search is infinitely better than relying on the semantic poverty of tags. On the other hand, as one element of Google’s multi-algorithmic search solution, tags in the form of links are a wonderful source of collective intelligence. Also, as ubiquitous computing yields an Internet of (non-textual) objects, user-defined tags will be important alongside the manufacturer-supplied metadata.

If “it’s so much easier to drag and drop an email message into a folder than it is to construct keywords that define its aboutness” then what do you do when an email fits equally well in multiple folders?

I’m an impatient information architect. I spend no more time organizing than absolutely necessary. When faced with this taxonomic dilemma, I used to agonize for a few seconds before deciding which folder to use. Once every few thousand messages, I would decide the message was important enough to cross-list in multiple folders, so I’d make a copy. But now, I never cross-list, and I generally agonize for less than a split second, because I know it doesn’t really matter which folder I use, since I have Google Desktop. I can’t wait until all my books, clothes, keys, remote controls, and other physical possessions have RFID tags, so I can search for them too.

With respect to personal information architecture, less is more.