Danny Sullivan has an in-depth overview and analysis of Google Co-op at his Search Engine Watch blog.
Danny describes it as Rollyo-like vertical search, combined with tagging (or, as Google calls it, labels). Users can "label" pages into various topics. Unlike end-user tagging with delicious, Google labels are geared towards publishers (or other vertical market developers) wishing to tag or categorize large numbers of pages into a predefined taxonomy. This process will be similar to what content providers have done for years using manual tagging or automated categorization software. The taxonomies can be hierarchical, with labels and sublabels.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. One reason that categorization has succeeded for large content providers but has often failed inside the enterprise is that it takes a fairly rigorous editorial process to apply consistent tags to content. Google has always emphasized the machine's ability to make information navigable through algorithms. This approach, bringing editorial decision making into the process, is sure to lead to some compelling discussion.
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