Blogging my previous entry today, I wanted to research the topic.  I remember reading about the concept in the past year or so, but can not remember where.  So, I went to Google and searched on the string "Balance Sheet Insurance".  It returned 146 links.  I scrolled through the first few but they were all on the topic of "balance sheets of insurance companies", which, coincidentally, happens to be a popular topic these days.  It, of course, has nothing to do with the concept that I was researching.

My fall-back in similar situations is to think of other search strings.  In this case, no alternative came to mind.

That is when I realized why I love del.icio.us (and tagging) so much:  It gives me the ability to categorize concepts in my own lexicon.  I would have tagged the article I read "balancesheetinsurance".

To give it a shot, I did go to del.icio.us, and tried the tag.  Unfortunately, no such tags exist yet.

The problem there is that del.icio.us is nowhere near the popularity and usage of Google or Yahoo!, and lacks the critical mass to be a mainstream search tool.

When it gets there, it will make our lives much easier.