There are extremely many people using and enjoying folksonomies or so called social
networks, but there are also very many that do not like them. I am one of those that like the concept, even though I have just started to get familiar with some of all new networks popping up every day. Sure, I am not so fond of the idea of identities competing with each other to become famous among the rest of the community, but I see it from another perspective; that we are just contributing (helping each other), not competing. All contribution perhaps gives inspiration to others that in turn may continue the artistic circle. In a way, culture is blooming more than ever through networks like folksonomies. Some of my favorite folksonomy sites are YouTube, Deviantart, Flickr and Last.fm. First I planned to bring up and talk a little bit about YouTube as it has been one of my favorite sites since it started. Instead I will make you somewhat acquainted to Last.fm because that is the site I am using most often nowadays. Besides, everybody is probably writing about YouTube.
The last.fm site is the top product from the team that created the Audioscrobbler music engine. More than ten million times a day, Last.fm users "scrobble" their tracks to the last.fm servers, helping to collectively build the world's largest social music platform. The site collects the wisdom of the crowds; delivering each user's musical profile to make personalized recommendations, connect users who share similar tastes, provide custom radio streams, and much more. With the August 2005 relaunch, Last.fm supports tagging of artists, albums, and tracks to create a site-wide folksonomy of music. Users can browse via tags, but the most important benefit is tag radio, permitting users to play music that has been tagged a certain way.
This tagging can be by genre ("metal"), mood ("chill"), artist characteristic ("baritone"), or any other form of user-defined classification ("seen live").
The network allows me to always be able to listen and access music I like, wherever Internet is available, but also experience other genres or artists that I ordinary would
skip or miss out on. When clicking around on the site, one can find, for example, music by Metallica which then can be linked to similar artists, or users that listen to similar music. In turn, this let me explore the community and at the same time educate myself with help of the band and music information that can be found on each page. This is one of few serious communities or folksonomies I have found that integrates me with the medium. The site is not just about exploring new and interesting music. It also focuses on allowing the user to constantly become more aware of music as culture in context of a society where art is becoming more important than before. Nevertheless, even though we are more absorbed by music, music as art also tends to be a hollow phenomenon that needs to be revived.
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