30 percent of U.S. residents tag online content.

Tagging, the emblematic activity of the "Web 2.0" and social-computing era, appears destined for mainstream status, a new study concludes.

Among U.S. Internet users, 28 percent have tagged content online, such as blog entries, photos, Web sites, video clips, and news articles, The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports in a study released this week. On any particular day, 7 percent of users engage in this activity to categorize and label material that they upload or find on the Web.

By giving people the chance to organize online content they're interested in and share it with others, tagging helps with the perennial challenge of finding useful things on the Web. "Tagging is a kind of next-stage search phenomenon--a way to mark, store, and then retrieve the Web content that users already found valuable and of which they want to keep track," the report reads.

Because this is Pew's first survey about tagging, the study doesn't quantify how fast tagging adoption is growing, but it does point at the rising popularity of tagging sites like Flickr and Del.icio.us as an indicator that the practice is increasing in popularity.
Why Is Tagging Taking Off?

Tagging is catching on as people realize the convenience of categorizing sites and files online, and as large Internet players like Google and Yahoo--the latter of which owns Flickr and Del.icio.us--offer tagging features in their own services, including Web mail, search, photo and video sharing, and social bookmarking, according to Pew.

"The act of tagging is likely to be embraced by a more mainstream population in the future because many organizations are making it easier and easier to tag Internet content," the report says.

For its study, Pew surveyed adult U.S. residents in December 2006 and found that men and women are equally likely to tag content online. "Taggers" are more likely to be under the age of 40, to have high education and income levels, and to have broadband Internet access at home.

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Apple iTune Gets Hacked

Apple Computer Inc. today had no comment on reports that a well-known hacker had cracked the code containing the restrictions that prevent iTunes music products from being replayed on any other player than the iPod.

A 22-year-old Norwegian, John Lech Johansen, aka "DVD Jon," claims to have unlocked the playback restrictions placed on downloaded music not only by Apple but by some of its competitors too.

Johansen became famous when he was only 15 by posting software that unlocked the scrambling system used by the film industry to prevent illegal copying of DVDs. But this time, Jon's latest effort may not carry the word "illegal."

Apple uses copy-protection software to make sure music downloaded from its iTunes Music Store cannot be played back on devices other than the iPod. Similar restrictions are imposed by many other online music stores to prevent their songs from being played on the iPod because Apple doesn't support those systems.

Johansen has told many in the Internet industry that he got around Apple's restrictions by "reverse engineering," creating a code that mimics the company's restrictions. That is important legally.

U.S. law, according to lawyers at the Electronic Freedom Foundation, may support what Johansen has done.

"It is called interoperability," says Corynne McSherry, a lawyer at EFF. "Johansen has done his best not to raise a legal issue."

The law protects interoperability so that a new digital product developed by one company works with other software it doesn't control.

Think Microsoft and Web browsers.

The theory behind the law, McSherry says, is that software produced by different companies should be able to work together so competition isn't stifled.

"You have to be sure that my software operates with their technology so as a company, I can offer something new, in short, so that my software works with their software," she says. "We like competition in the United States, so that one company doesn't own all future development."

Apple likely has a different view. Just last quarter it sold almost 9 million iPods. And since the openning of its online music store, it has sold 1.5 billion songs at 99 cents each.

And Johansen's plan, unlike the fruits of his previous hacking, is to use this reverse engineering for profit. Through a company he has set up, called DoubleTwist, he plans to sell the technology.

A spokeswoman says DoubleTwist already has a client, presumably to sell music that would now be compatible with the iPod.

What will this mean for Apple?

It's too early to say. The company will clearly mount a legal challenge, but some analysts believe Apple could end up selling fewer iPods but more music.

"It could be in Apple's interest that when people download music from iTunes, that consumers will be able to import it to other places: your home, your computer, your car," McSherry says.

And other lawyers say there's a big difference between "reverse engineering" and hacking into a company's internal, confidential information or a bank's records, for example. That is clearly against the law.

But, a spokesman for Johansen says, "There's a certain amount of trouble that Apple can give us."

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