Web 2.0 brought about user-generated content and as such, an interesting phenomena occurred - instead of information architects coming up with the terminology and labels of a website, the actual users helped define and create part of the information architecture through user-defined tags. The term is known as Folksonomy and was developed by Thomas Vander Wal during a mailing list conversation from the Information Architecture Institute. Wikipedia defines it as the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content and has been called everything from collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, social tagging, and more.

Perhaps the best examples of folksonomies at work can be seen at Del.icio.us and Flickr.

Del.icio.us, a social bookmarking manager, allows Users to tag keywords that describe and organize content with any vocabulary and words of their choice.

Flickr, a photo management web application, allows users and friends/family to tag their photos with their own keywords.

Folksomomies directly reflect the vocabulary of the users but critics argue that it lacks a hierarchical structure and the uncontrolled vocabulary leads to ambiguity. At a time where social networks and communities are growing, folksomonies are here to stay. They encourage users to participate and organize information based on their needs and vocabulary. While I do expect to see more sites utilizing them, there is a still a need to shape and organize other information and navigation on a website. Thus, while the role of the information architect may shift a little, they should embrace folksomonies for what they are and what they can become.