Modern computer files systems are not the best. A document can only go in one folder. A folder can only go in one folder. What if I make a graphic for my iphone applications? It’d be great to have an iphone development folder and a graphics folder that it can go into for both. That could work if the “folder” notion were replaced with “categories”. Then, when I want to see all the graphics I’ve been working on recently, I can open the graphics category. If I want to see all iphone graphics, I select both the “graphics” and the “iphone” categories. I can put “iphone” in the “development” category as well. Then, if I want to see all the graphics I’ve made for every application I’ve written, I select “graphics” and “development”. Even though I only selected “iphone” as a category for this graphic, the system should know that “iphone” is in the “development” category.
Now, let’s say you don’t remember exactly which categories your file belongs to. Just start picking all the categories that make sense. The system will return the closest matches. You can even potentially select a wrong category when searching and still find the files you’re looking for.
Rather than having a desktop with one “My Documents” folder, you’re presented with a category cloud. Isn’t this a better way of doing things?