Categories - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 42

Figure 2-19. Three types of classification.
Each way of organizing has strengths and weaknesses. Taxonomy affords a view from the top,
facets help us muddle through the middle, and tags build bridges at the bottom. As information
architects we must define the right mix for each system by balancing value and cost. And we
should be open to ideas outside this ontology of taxonomies, facets, and tags.
Netflix, for example, illustrates thinking outside the box. They had a genre taxonomy and myri-
ad forms of navigation and personalization, but they decided to make the system better.
Figure 2-20. Netflix navigation and taxonomy.
Netflix invented a unique classification scheme that blends taxonomy, facets, and tags. They
built an ontological model with over 1,000 microtags, and hired a team of taggers to describe
14,000 movies and TV shows. Then they designed algorithms and a grammar for stitching facets
and tags together into a colorful array of 76,897 microgenres. xxxvii