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Hierarchy is soooo 20th century! Getting over the label vs. folder hangup in Google

As a user of Gmail, you already know that Gmail (and Google Docs and Spreadsheets) don’t use the familiar concept of hierarchical folders. Instead, Google uses the concept of labels (which are like “tags” in other online software).

Some people “get” labels immediately, others take a bit longer - especially us older folk - youngsters have pretty much grown up with tagging as part of their computing experience. And that’s the thing - hierarchies are so 20th century! There is something quite industrial and restricting about hierarchies. After all, it’s a metaphor based on the physical world (”folders”).

Labels are much more flexible because they don’t rely on physical constraints. And once you “get” labels, you’ll never go back to Folders. Why? Because the problem with hierarchies (folders) is that items (messages, docs, etc.) can only exist in one folder at a time. With labels, they can be categorized in multiple “virtual” folders called labels. This is obviously not possible in the physical world, but is natural in the virtual world.

Take a simple example like a Project. If we are using folders, we can put our Enron project “Project XYZ” in the folder Clients/Enron/Projects/Project XYZ. But what if I wanted to also file Project XYZ in the Projects/Disasters folder? Problem. I could make a copy of the file and put it in 2 folders, but that doesn’t make much sense. But if you are using labels, no problem. Project XYZ can be labeled Client, Enron, Project, and Disaster. Now you can easily find Project XYZ if you are looking for files related to clients, to Enron specifically, to Projects and to Disasters. And if you are looking specifically for a Project that is also a Disaster, you can simply search for: label:project AND label:disaster. Very flexible.

To see a long discussion about this, take a look here Google Blogoscoped.

Also read a practical testimonial here!