I dunno, he's too easy on this, imho. Technorati tags make little sense for the user herself, nevertheless many people do tag their posts. But you can also integrate Technorati tags into your blog cms' tag system, so there would be personal value, then. The same goes for Flickr tags, imho. I have the impression that people use many more tags than they would do for personal reference only. 'a trait of altruism they just don’t possess' is hardly an argument to me. Taking this to the extreme, I might as well ask you why you're blogging this. For personal benefit only? ;-)

What I'm trying to say is that I do see his point, I guess. And the differenciation between netwerk value and personal value makes perfect sense to me. I just don't see how you could possibly have one without the other.

(somehow my post didn't appear, so again, as i had copied it to the clipboard anyway.)

i rarely use technorati tags, for the same reasons. however they do make sense, in two applications:
- integrated into the cms, as moe describes, so cero effort for the author, although as well very low value for them. only network effect.
- for rather specific tags, as a better way to be found, better in terms of better than google. example.

In a recent dicussion about tagging I was also astonished that I was expected to tag for the greater good. I tag
a) for mere task-processing reasons ('2blog' '2read' etc.)
b) so that I can quickly refer (others) to collections of links *I* found valuable
c) to maybe find the stuff again ;)

IF this action is valubale to others: fine. (up to now) I rarely 'use' the cotent tagged by others with the exeptions of toplists.

(Hey smi, will somebody from knallgrau be in HH wg. SinnerSchrader? I'll be there and liveblog on soso.twoday.net ;) )