Tagalag launched months ago without creating too much hype. No top bloggers talked about Tagalag and this fact corroborated my good feeling about the different spirit of web 2.0: pragmatic, focused on solving real problems and enhancing the online experience.
Tagalag is a funny project without strong technological assets and without a viable business model. Since you can tag everything, you could also tag people (actually their email addresses) and this appears to be the only rationale behind Tagalag.
On my opinion Tagalag deserved the silence it got.
But Today Michael Arrington posted about Tagalag in his TechCrunch weblog. And this is a bad sign. Michael is doing a great job mapping what is valuable in the web 2.0 world. His company and product reviews are always an interesting reading. But if a smart and well connected entrepreneur like Michael puts hype on projects and companies like Tagalag, I start smelling bubble …
What was a budding movement three years ago, at the dawn of the revival in technology, internet, and silicon valley, has become a full blown mania.
[From Fred Wilson.]
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I disagree
Tagalag is NOT just some useless service. They are the makings of a universal profile system, and whether they choose to take on that role themselves or not they have pioneered the idea and are the first in the community to remotely support such a concept. Even if they don’t end up being THE service in the end, they have started something important. See my post at:
http://singpolyma-tech.blogspot.com/2005/11/tagalag-universal-profile.html
hyping companies
Hey Marco, I see your point, but yesterday was a slow news day and I’m “into” tagging this week. So Tagalag got a mention. I like pointing to stuff that has some new twist even if its not going to be a real company, or even a feature of a real company. All of this stuff evolves our thinking and I think it’s interesting. Thanks for linking!
Mike
Thanks
Mike, thanks for being so transparent and honest in your comment, I really appreciate it.
Singpolyma, I read your post and commented there.
Ouch!
As the developer of Tagalag, I was thrilled when it was mentioned on TechCrunch, slow news day or not. You’ll find additional coverage at:
http://blog.plaxoed.com/2005/09/19/social-tagging-on-people-e-mail-addresses/
http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/weblog/2005/09/tagalag_tags_an.html
Fred Wilson’s profile (not an endorsement!) is at:
http://tagalag.com/profile.html?id=10010
Tagalag has no funding and does not charge for the services it provides. It is more quixotic than pragmatic (someone has to do it!) but all the information it uses is available via a public API.
It’s exciting to realize new ideas in an emerging web community, but if there was a new bubble, I wasn’t invited. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll try it out. You can create an account at:
http://tagalag.com/password.html
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