http://net2tree.org What is Net2tree ? Net2tree will be a web based collaborative web directory built on Open Taxonomy, an OpenSource Ruby on Rails web application, which is currently under development. It allows users to navigate a tag based directory taxonomy that has been created by them. The system is built using Ruby on Rails to provide a rich application experience to the user in a web browser. Ever spent more than an hour searching for something on the web? It's too hard to find what you're looking for, either on the web, or in an enterprise environment. Keyword searching is ambiguous. Search for "soap", and you'll get results about detergents, daytime TV, and an internet protocol. Social Networking sites like del.icio.us and FlikR.com allow users to share tags they have placed on concepts, and link to them. This helps, but the tags form a flat vocabulary. There's no structure to them. It's still difficult to locate things. Web directories organize everything into categories, and sub-categories, forming a taxonomy of all information. They are relatively difficult to change, and as new content is created and indexed, it is a constant battle for a static taxonomy to keep from getting stale. Open Taxonomy allows end users to search the taxonomy for a concept, and if they can't find it, they can fix the taxonomy themselves, so that the next person can drill down directly to it. They do this by tagging the concepts, and tagging the tags with a parent category, eventually merging the tag structure into the "official" directory taxonomy. Net2tree users can share their categories, or tags with others, then vote on and rank each other's tags. Popular tags/categories can be "Elected" to become the official taxonomy. Users can search the indexed web content for keywords in specified sub-trees of the taxonomy, which greatly increases the content's findability. ...... Trying to make the world an easier place to find. en http://net2tree.org/?q=node/1 <p>The <a href="http://opentaxonomy.sourceforge.net/">Open Taxonomy</a> OpenSource project has started up, and is looking for anyone who would like to volunteer some time. The design is underway. Today, we can use anyone with development and usability skills. Soon, we'll also need people with documentation, and testing skills. </p> <p> Check out the Open Taxonomy Project's Source Forge page at <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/opentaxonomy" target="_new">Open Taxonomy on SourceForge.net</a></p> <p> Ken Cooley gave a <a href="http://barcamp.org/f/OpenTaxonomyBarCampHouston.ppt" target="_new"> talk</a> on the <a href="http://barcamp.org/f/OpenTaxonomyBarCampHouston.ppt" target="_new"> Open Taxonomy project</a> last weekend at the June 10 2006 <a href="http://barcamp.org/BarCampHouston">BarCampHouston</a> unconference.</p> http://net2tree.org/?q=node/1#comment Sun, 18 Jun 2006 01:02:37 -0500 admindp 1 at http://net2tree.org