Twitter Goes all Gaga for Data

Where's this going . . . annotation-wise?

So it looks like Twitter is going to add annotations to their service. Developers will now have the ability to provide for “tacking on” (as I understand it) more information, whether it be metadata or some other type of distinguishing information, via newly provided fields or other ways of accessing the extra space provided. I came across, via Kendall Thiessen (@ideasurge), a very interesting article on the concept – with lots of discussion about the different ways in which it might be used (links, extended tweets, languages, etc.).

My favorite part of the discussion, written by Mal Curtis, is where he talks about what problems this new capability could surface. The first issue he raises is closely related – I think – to the long-standing issue (argument?) between the use of a taxonomy (with its accompanying structured vocabulary) and that of a folksonomy (which can be characterized similarly to the author’s as a “Wild West” approach).

I also really like the first comment, from R_macdonald, which begins (and I can’t tell if he’s being a bit facetious here or if he’s just a bit more wound tight than I am), “Good post Mal, you are on top of a remarkably extensible chance for substantive innovation on the Twitter platform.” He goes on to discuss the semantic web and Tim Berners-Lee’s dream for a far more transactional and interactive web. All very interesting in my estimation.

Not being a real Techie, though, I’m curious to know what others may thing about this upcoming addition to Twitter and how it will (or can) be used by others developing apps to utilize this extension of Twitter’s capabilities. Anybody out there?