I asked some people at the recent IASummit about folksonomies in the hallways. PeterMe thinks the IAs have a better conversation going on around folksonomies than the techies - I'm not so sure. I've been a bit dissapointed with the lack of IA's speaking up in the blogosphere about this.
The panel at the IA Summit was good though. It lacked insights about integrating folksonomies with other approaches (how exactly, folks?), and there were some misconceptions (synonyms are NOT a problem with folksonomies, they're a problem with the technology. Google solved search query synonyms pretty well, the folksonomies will do the same.), but overall it was great to hear IA's speak up. Too bad we don't do this publicly, enough (and I'm as guilty as the next guy).
Peter Morville's part of the panel was brilliant. I'd actually never seen him speak - he had me laugh out lout quite a few times. David Weinberger's favourite metaphor (folksonomies are leaves falling of the trees) was extended in many ways. Peter Morville: "what happens with leaves that are raked together? They rot. And become food. For trees. Which then live long and useful lives." There was more talk about trees having many shapes, trees blocking out the light for new things to grow, people bumping into trees which can cause pain and so on. Fun.
Anyways,
here's the movie (Quicktime, 7M)