I loved tag clouds from the moment I saw them, and I still do. Two years ago, they roamed the social web like buffalo on the pre-Columbian plains of North America… huge, thundering herds of keywords of all shades and sizes. And you’ll see them to this day on many of their earliest adopters – from Delicious.com (makeover and all) to 43 Things.
These days, though, I’m noticing that on more and more sites the tag clouds have evaporated. I’m not saying they’re dead (okay, granted, that’s exactly what the cartoon’s saying, but that’s why they issue artistic licenses), but they’re getting scarcer.
And maybe they were overused and abused back in the day; not every site lends itself to a tag cloud, and not every tag cloud needs to be overwhelming and cluttered. Still, they have their place, and I’d be sorry to see them die out.
Now, the Flash splash screen? I’d go to that funeral in my dancing shoes.
[Ed: readers are encouraged to ignore the RWW tag cloud, located in our sidebar, for this post.]
Top image credit: ocean.flynn
