Tag, You're It: Scientists Describe Collaborative Tagging Sites like Del.icio.us: Their model exemplifies two primary aspects of user behavior: preferential attachment and aging of resources. Preferential attachment can also be described as a copying attitude. [Ciro] Cattuto, who performed the research with Vittorio Loreto and Luciano Pietronero, offers the example of linking to a photo or article about New York City. The person posting the link can tag the item in several ways, a few of which are "nyc," "newyork_city," or newyork. The choices of previous del.icio.us users, however, are likely to influence the next group of users. "There is pressure, in essence," Cattuto explains, "because if you use tags that are already widespread within the system, people are able to find your entries—so, using popular tags makes your content findable and makes you more visible."
The aging of resources effect follows a previous finding by complex network researcher Albert-László Barabási of the University of Notre Dame, which found that information stays fresh on the Web for only about 36 to 48 hours. Similarly, the researchers found that users on collaborative tagging sites would likely prefer recently added tags to older ones. [...]
Now, that the team has a model for how tags behave through association with other words, Barabási says, they can ask the question: "Will a tag get oversaturated and become meaningless or will it grow indefinitely?"
