We just announced tagging in our system – makes perfect sense to me (tagging allows us to make show insertion and consumption easier over time).
I’m really excited about a byproduct of the tagging: if venue X has 100 shows in our system, with tags we can look back to see a lot of information about those shows – genre most importantly. Match (mash?) that up with other data, like our zipcode/population/ album sales / mp3 sales (having partner companies == good), and we then have valuable market data we can share w/ bands looking for interesting places to play.

Further (can you tell I’m really excited?), by allowing tagging and different information to float back out of our system, we’ll be making the insertion process easier – once a few people tag a band/artist, we’ll have a good idea of what type of music they are – and can keep live updates (by majority) on where to put those bands on display.

Interesting times, indeed.

Does that address usability issues? I mean, it’s great fun to play with and it’s great to know that we *can* do such things. But how usable is something like that?

I don’t want to take away from anyone here. I just want to point out that all of these great new uses of internet technology remind me of the late-90s/early-00s web. Lots of eye candy and no thought as to how people are actually going to use these things.

It seems like every other week a new API is being released and these mashups are being formed. Someone should eventually build the ultimate mashup that combines something to do with maps, travel, cooking, photos, and (add random API here).

While I would agree with you that there’s a lot of eye candy (how many gradients can we get?), I’d have to disagree that there’s no attention to how people will use the Web.

I think that’s the difference with the Web development nowadays: Those of us that have been through the first few rounds of ups-and-downs, we have finally emerged to an age where owners, managers, partners, and clients now hear our chants of “but will they use it? CAN they use it?”

Sure, I think there’s a bit much of the 2.0. discussion going on, but there was too much blogging going on too … livejournal and more… long before there was a name for it.

Finally, if we don’t build it, how will we ever learn what will be used? Shouldn’t usability be determined by people attempting use?

I’d appreciate some tips at dinescumiky (at) hotmail.com

I still love how the US stories all point to somewhere in West Virginia… very volatile place, it would seem.

Lazy Sunday, the source of the quote.

Here’s the thing with visualizations though. Would people use it? I’ve thought about this for TailRank. I’d totally expose the data and allow someone else to do it themselves but I’m not really sure it’s a real world and useful app fro everyday people.

I mean if you want stories on SF you could just view the ’sanfrancisco’ tag right?

Kevin