A great new video is flying around the Interwebs, by Michael Wesch:

It’s all about tagging now.

The other day, I was asked by a coworker to explain the difference between categories and tags. After trying to explain it for a couple minutes, the ultimate conclusion from the coworker was that a category and tag are essentially the same. That’s really not true. The best way I can describe a tag versus a category is:

A Tag:

• Describes a piece of information
• Doesn’t classify a piece of information

A Category:

• Also describes a piece of information
• Places information into a particular classification.

It seems to me that categories are obsolete in today’s environment. Even for this blog post, I’m given the option by WordPress to categorize AS WELL as tag the post based on the topic of my discussion. My vote is that we get rid of categories. We really don’t need them anymore, right?

Duncan Riley at the TechCrunch blog says that information has been devolving for the past 12 years. I disagree. It seems to me that information has needed to become less categorized due to the way we’re able to access information now using search, etc. If we’re able to find the information that we’re seeking more quickly and with a higher success rate, isn’t this an improvement? Why does he call it a devolution?

By the way, if you haven’t seen Wesch’s other famous video, you can view it below:

The other day, I was waiting for a package to be delivered by UPS. This proved to be quite inconvenient since I was forced to wait at home all afternoon for this package to be delivered. You see, I could tell from UPS’ website that the package would definitely be delivered today, but not the time it would arrive. I had to be there for the delivery because it required a signature.

It seems to me that this model of package delivery (tracking on the website only to sit at home and wait for the driver to show up) is about five years behind many other services that harness the full potential of the Web to improve customer service.

With all that Google’s doing with public transportation tracking, why can’t this be applied to package tracking? Imagine: you know that a package is due to be delivered today and through UPS’ website, able to decipher the route number/driver that will be delivering your package. Using Google Delivery (made-up), you could then log in to see on a map the driver’s route, stops ahead of yours, and an estimated time of delivery. If providing the driver’s route proves to be a problem security-wise, why not simply have a way to show the number of stops ahead of yours plus an estimated time of delivery? Taking this a step further, you could also provide a way to send a message to your delivery person through the website regarding where to leave a package, or any special instructions.

Just a new idea on a foggy Thursday morning…