Taxonomy in sharepoint 2013

Taxonomy

A taxonomy is a formal classification system. A taxonomy groups the words, labels, and terms that describe something, and then arranges the groups into a hierarchy.

People construct taxonomies for almost any kind of information, from biological systems to organizational structures. For example, biologists group living organisms into four major classifications: animal, plant, fungus, and microbe. Each of these major groups has many subdivisions. Together, the whole system is a taxonomy.

Organizations create taxonomies in too many ways to list. They create Chart of Accounts taxonomies to manage accounting systems, organization charts and job classifications to manage employees, product catalogs and so on. All these taxonomies are structured hierarchies of information; formal classification systems that help people handle information.

Folksonomy

A folksonomy is an informal classification system. It is evolves gradually as web site users collaborate on words, labels, and terms on a site. Originally, folksonomies developed from popular applications such as bookmarking.

If you have ever seen a tag cloud on a website, then you have seen a visualization of a folksonomy. The following figure shows a tag cloud on a SharePoint site.