The images flicker across the screen, one every few seconds: a bed, its ruffled covers pulled back to reveal a lonely emptiness; two pairs of lips gently touching, on the verge of a kiss; a lamb playfully nuzzled beneath its mother's belly; two little girls whispering secrets to one another. The photographs come from a college student in Oklahoma, a middle-aged man from rural England, and a Dutch woman, none of whom has ever spoken with or met any of the others. Each photo takes its place among the rest simply because it has been "tagged" by its photographer with the word "intimacy". The photographs form part of a slideshow on Flickr.com, a website that allows its users to store, manipulate and share their digital photos. While such sites have been around for years, Flickr stands out because it makes it easy for users to categorise, search and share photos through "tags"—one-word descriptions that capture the essence of a photograph. A tag can be a name or a place, an adjective or a verb, concrete or abstract.
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