[Sigia-l] Topics v. Types

[Andrew Boyd]

On 4/29/07, Ruth Kaufman <ruth.kaufman at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1) How topic-specific should types be? In other words, if you craft your
> link or content types as genres or flavors of content, eventually, you'll
> crash into subject headings. In my experience, it depends on the content and
> application, but I wonder if anyone has come up with any heuristics.
> 2) Are topics more newsy than subjects? Or are they simply subjects in
> motion/in dialog?
> 3) Would a typology of types be useful to anyone (other than me :-))?

Hi Ruth,

my two cents worth - I believe that topics/types/folk-taxonomic
content categories should not be considered in isolation if they are
to form part of a holistic design solution. In plain language, they
are one way, but should never be the only way or even the main way.

Topics would possibly fit better into a folksonomic tag-based
navigation mechanism if they are going to change over time - unless
someone is going to constantly update the topic menu :) But this fails
where a rapidly emerging topic comes into prominence, and everyone is
looking for it (unless you keep a "Latest News"-style category).

A typology of types would be useful - I know people that are
interested in taxonomies of taxonomies, and the two would seem to be
complimentary.

Cheers, Andrew

---
Andrew Boyd
http://skonkwerks.net/facibusreviews