Tags, flickr, and online communities

So this week I am suppossed to really dig deep and consider the significance of tags and what they allow users to do. I will try my best to fulfill this task. I think tags allow people to link themselves to eachother on the web. The internet is such a vast domain with so many places to go, things to discover, learn, play around with. It can be likened to the world's largest mall; walking through the mall with no friends and no particular destination in mind is kind of pointless and lonely, so it is with the world wide web. Tags help you group your searches around certain interests, ideas, hobbies, talents or whatever. The groupings in turn cause a ripple effect letting you connect with people who have similar groupings. So I guess tags, flickr, and other online communitites are the equivalent of meeting up with a group of friends at the mall and being able to visit your favorite stores with them. Yeah I know that my explanation of tags and what they allow users to do might sound simple and cheesy, but this is basically what tags and other aspects of web 2.0 technology mean to me.