@misc{Cattuto2006, author = {Cattuto, Ciro and Loreto, Vittorio and Pietronero, Luciano}, title = {Collaborative Tagging and Semiotic Dynamics}, year = {2006}, note = {ttarXiv:cs.CY/0605015}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0605015}, keywords = {FCA, OntologyHandbook, folksonomy, research, tagging, taxonomy}, abstract = {Collaborative tagging has been quickly gaining ground because of its
ability to recruit the activity of web users into effectively organizing
and sharing vast amounts of information. Here we collect data from
a popular system and investigate the statistical properties of tag
co-occurrence. We introduce a stochastic model of user behavior embodying
two main aspects of collaborative tagging: (i) a frequency-bias mechanism
related to the idea that users are exposed to each other's tagging
activity; (ii) a notion of memory - or aging of resources - in the
form of a heavy-tailed access to the past state of the system. Remarkably,
our simple modeling is able to account quantitatively for the observed
experimental features, with a surprisingly high accuracy. This points
in the direction of a universal behavior of users, who - despite
the complexity of their own cognitive processes and the uncoordinated
and selfish nature of their tagging activity - appear to follow simple
activity patterns.} }