The links clouds come to replace expert taxonomies in common practice, carefully constructed hierarchies vanish. In their place is a flattened world where every idea, at any level, is a topic as worthy as any other. Instead of a hierarchy based on user-centered classification systems, the Links cloud “hierarchy” is based on raw usage. If several visitors view a collection of photos tagged "X", upload their own photos of that "X", and tag their photos "X", then this "X" becomes an important — and visible — category.
The intellectual problem is that Links clouds create a data world where subtopics are detached from their "parents"; where the very notion of "parent/child" relations no longer exists. The counter-argument is, who cares? If everyone digs "X", let's make this "X" be easy to find.
The less brainy and more pressing problem is that with tag clouds, topics either gain immediate, widespread traction with the public, or they disappear from the cloud. Once they disappear, it is as if they no longer exist. Few users will ever find them. Network effects being exponential, what is immediately mildly popular quickly becomes artificially very popular, while what has yet to become popular never will be.
Links clouds harness all mindless accidental randomness and make it the driving engine for navigating deep, ever-expanding content troves. Older ways, based on library science, undoubtedly suffer from the disadvantage of not being new. But they help people find what they need. And that is what navigation should do.

Discussions about Links cloud:
MARTINEZ CHRISTOPHER (Free video sharing software) says:
Like mood rings and fanny packs, like mullets and the Macarena, the weighted tag clouds meme popularized by Flickr and Technorati is about to cross a permanent cultural shame threshold. Brilliant as the idea remains, faddishness is choking its air supply. Damned clouds are everywhere.

ANDERSON DANIEL (Video on demand script) says:
Yeah, It's not just blogs that are using weighted tag clouds. Businesses are shoveling them into interface makeovers, with predictably mixed success. EX. a company that helps people publish their own books, CDs, and other products, offers a half-hearted tag cloud to help customers browse categories.

TAYLOR PAUL (PPM vod software) says:
I'd love to be able to use this on my website. I've downloaded the example and it runs very well, except that nothing happens when I click on a word in the cloud. The word is marked with a border but I am not redirected to the href within the anchor tag. I am using IE7 and flash player activex 9.0.124.
Can you help or offer any suggestions?
Thanks.

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