I was just on a panel at the Endeca user conference where the co-founder, Pete Bell, asked: “Resolved, tag clouds are the mullet of the Internet.” I enjoyed it, and it started a good conversation.

My view: Sure, they’re sometimes used just because they’re “in.” But they can also serve a real purpose. Jim from Buzzillions pointed out that a tag cloud, when users understand it(as most don’t, apparently) implicitly says “This is your data.” And, of course, there are places where tag clouds are just plain useful.

Still, it was an amusing way of posing the question.

Categories: Uncategorized dw