43 Things is a social networking website that is built on the principles of tagging

Tag (metadata)

In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...

, rather than creating explicit interpersonal links (as seen in Friendster

Friendster

Friendster is a social gaming site that is based in Malaysia, KL. The company now operates mainly from the three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore....

 and Orkut

Orkut

Orkut is a social networking website that is owned and operated by Google Inc. The service is designed to help users meet new and old friends and maintain existing relationships...

). Users create accounts and then list a number of goals or hopes; these goals are parsed by a lexer

Lexical analysis

In computer science, lexical analysis is the process of converting a sequence of characters into a sequence of tokens. A program or function which performs lexical analysis is called a lexical analyzer, lexer or scanner...

 and connected to other people's goals that are constructed with similar words or ideas. This concept is also known as folksonomy

Folksonomy

A folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content; this practice is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging...

.

History

43 Things was launched on January 1, 2005, by the Robot Co-op, a small company based in Seattle founded by blogger Erik Benson, Maktub

Maktub

Maktub is a Seattle, Washington-based music group formed in the late 1990s that combines elements of hip-hop, rhythm and blues, soul, and funk, with a sprinkling of jazz and rock.-History:...

 keyboardist Daniel Spils, and former Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 and Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 executive Josh Petersen.

Further reading

• "Sociable Robots believe in 43 Things" from The Seattle Times
  The Seattle Times
  The Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...
  
  (December 27, 2004)
• Steal this Bookmark from Salon.com
  Salon.com
  Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
  
   (February 8, 2005)
• Amazon's 43 Secrets from Salon.com
  Salon.com
  Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
  
   (February 8, 2005)
• "Amazon invests in blogging site" from News.com (February 9, 2005)
• "43 Things: A Community Study" by Michael C. Habib

External links

• 43 Things
• The Robot Co-op blog