A brief history - and future - of the tag in Europe (updated)

Imported from the Blogactiv.eu blogging platform, closed without warning in 2021. Links, images and embeds not guaranteed, and comments not displayed.

<update 29/11/13> It went pretty well, given that it took 15 minutes to get a working wifi and the projector died at least 4 times... For what it's worth, here's the Prezi I gave. Gratifyingly, the preview of the Hashtag Europe wireframes seemed to do the job, and allow people to understand just what this tool could do, if done right. Given the Twestival's focus on tags and storytelling, the thing that emerged from the discussion was how this tool could provide essential storytelling research - assembling opinions and ideas from across Europe on a topic would allow storytellers to add further value editorially, in the process building bridges between previously disconnected conversations. I'll be using this as a basis for a "Developers' Cut" screencast sometime soon. Many thanks to @eurocentrique for organising the entire Twestival and fitting me into the programme. </update>

I think I laughed out loud when I saw the theme of this year's Brussels Twestival (Facebook page, @BRUTwestival):

This year Brussels' own Twestival #BRUTwestival will be focusing on the theme of storytelling with the use of our new best friend - the hashtag

Given that in 2007 I  elected to call this blog the Tagsmanian Devil, and my preferred name for a rebooted BloggingPortal is Hashtag Europe, how could I resist? I'll be speaking at 17h, and although the programme says I'll be speaking about "EU and EU Hashtags", I intend to live up to my curmudgeonly image and point out the tags have been around for a little longer than Twitter.

Hashtags - i.e, tags on Twitter, and now Facebook and Google+ - barely scratch the surface. They are one-dimensional and boring. So come along for a whirlwind tour and learn:

• how, back in the Jurassic when I was still young, tags revolutionised information architecture and ushered in Web2.0!
• and how tomorrow, with automated semantic tagging technology, faceted search and other cool tools, we can use tags to knit together an EU online public space across languages!

And for the truly masochistic, I'll be giving a slightly longer peak at the Hashtag Europe wireframes than provided in my previous post.