Call them Visual Tags (v-Tags), not 2D Barcodes

August 13, 2008

A vTag for Skilful Minds generated with Google Chart API

For those who think discussions of semantic value and meaning are pointless, with no relationship to technology adoption, you may want to skip this post. 

We first discussed visual tags in 2006. Many people today refer to them as 2d barcodes. However, a crucial difference exists between what things are like and what they in fact are. Calling visual tags (v-Tags) 2d barcodes is like calling YouTube a video database, Flickr a photo database, or Del.icio.us a favorites list.  Literally, the description is accurate. Functionally, it is meaningless. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Community 2.0, e-Learning 2.0, Experience Design, Innovation, Ubiquitous Computing, v-Tags, Web 2.0 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons

Mobile Learning and Visual Tags

August 4, 2008
eLearning Guild QR Visual Tag

eLearning Guild QR Visual Tag

We first discussed visual tags a couple of years ago as Web 2.0 technology initially emerged in mobile devices such as cell phones. Referring to two visual tagging techniques available at the time, we noted:

Shotcode and Semacode make mobile information seeking over the web work like scanning a bar code to determine the price of an item. They make offline media interactive. It is pure pull, unless you consider the offline advertising “pushy”. The metadata necessary for accessing relevant information is largely in the context, the embodied situation of the user.

Take a look at the following video for an overview of how visual tagging works, in this example it is for advertising services.

So, how does this relate to mobile learning, or m-Learning as the eLearning Guild refers to the practice? Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | e-Learning 2.0, v-Tags, Web 2.0 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons

Forget Tags and Folksonomies, Try Place-Based Stories

October 10, 2006

From the first time I heard the work folksonomy I really liked the concept. The idea of building meta-data about places and things from the people who experience them really seems cool if you have an appreciation for sociability. However, I must say that the new twist on the concept offered by [murmur] provides people moving through places with thick descriptions rather than tagged information aggregated by collaborative filtering software. [murmur] is available in Toronto, San Jose, Vancouver, and Montreal. It is really an oral history project that allows you to access stories about places you pass through while you are there. But, the basic concept is much more than oral history. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | v-Tags, Web 2.0 | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons