How to use Categories and Tags

Categories and tags are both popular classification devices for web-based content. Along with hyperlinks, categories and tags are your primary organization and classification tools in Near-Time as well. Category and tag information is searchable within Near-Time, so using them effectively greatly increases your access to relevant content as needed.

Categories:

Categories are useful for filing content along topical lines, not unlike the folders used to organize your dekstop files. Categories remain popular as the primary organizational model in weblog systems. 

Tags:

Tags are more flexible. Most tags are keywords extracted from a document for indexing purposes. An article on a sporting event may be categorized under "Sports", then additionally tagged with more specific keywords: names of the teams and notable players. Tagging has become popular in social applications like bookmark and media sharing: as more resources are tagged, the web becomes better defined and relevant information is more easily discovered.

Tagging is a flexible system appropriate for many types of metadata. For example, information may be tagged based on status (“in process” or “final”) or importance (“important”). While the content in a Near-Time space benefits from being taggable by all members, its also easy to use tags for personal organization and discovery (“john:to do” or “bob:favorite”).

In Near-Time, categories are always pre-built. (Although, you can define a new category at any time.) When applying tags, you can select from a list of the most popular tags applied within the space, or enter a set of tags (comma delimited) in a entry box.

How to add Categories and/or Tags to Content

Categories and tags are created within the right sidebar. When a page or news article is being edited, you can select one or more categories or tags. (By default, the 20 most popular tags are available for selection. You can add tags to a page in a free-form matter by clicking the Edit Tags option.)