On Tags

Would it be a good idea if tags replaced folders? Could tags replace folders? The three online storage systems I have been investigating over the last while (Gmail, Flickr and Del.icio.us) are all using tags to classify content. Having gotten used to the multi-faceted nature of the tagging method, I now find myself wishing to be able to implement the same idea on my desktop and in our studio workflow. Within the companies I have worked for, the standard design studio working-folder hierarchy has been in place since the early nineties at least. Being broadly: a master ‘Current Clients’ folder; then individual folders for ‘Job Name and Number’ (say 9999); and then nested within those 9999 Admin; 9999 Design; 9999 PDF Proofs; 9999 Production and 9999 Text.  This is a tried and tested system that works fine for everything that falls within the standard studio workflow. But any extra files on your hard drive which fall outside of the norm do tend to gravitate towards the slushpile. It seems to me that some way of implementing tags on all that additional material would be helpful, as the tagging methodology does seem to work well with messy unstructured datasets.

Come to think of it, if Blogger would only implement a tagging system, then I could have tagged this post as: Design; Nerd; Filing; Interface.