Tag! You're it.

This week I discovered an interesting project called Brand Tags (Brandtags.net) - where visitors can drop by and "tag" popular brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, GE, etc.

Tagging is commonplace throughout the Web. While watching YouTube videos, you may notice a cluster of descriptive words to the right - those are "tags" that the user has added to help categorize where the video belongs. Brand Tags works in a similar fashion, except that you "tag" based on your perception - not categorization - of the brands.

Brand Tags is fascinating because it gives us a window into the collective mind of hundreds of thousands of people and how they currently see large companies - companies that spend billions of dollars to shape our perceptions.

Here are a couple examples of brands and their corresponding tags:

Brand: Apple
Tags: Cool, Design, Awesome, Innovation
http://www.brandtags.net/browse.php?id=72

Brand: MySpace
Tags: Annoying, Friends, Music, Kids, Teenagers, Ugly
http://www.brandtags.net/browse.php?id=41

Brand: Google
Tags: Search, Everything, God, Evil
http://www.brandtags.net/browse.php?id=2

Brand: McDonald's
Tags: Cheap, Fat, Food, Unhealthy
http://www.brandtags.net/browse.php?id=47

This is just another great example of how social mediums have leveled the playing field between large organizations and their consumers.

Comments

[SIGEPJEDI]

Nice post. I look forward to seeing what Noah Adds to this project, as it still in the early stages. Ive sent him a few suggestions, which he has already implemented, and am Glad to see the site gaining traction and growing buzz online!

http://twitter.com/SIGEPJEDI

[Rita]

Very interesting. The Brand Tags site looks fascinating. Thanks!