User Extensible Form-Based Data Association Apparatus

Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to the classification and management of digital data artifacts, and particularly to systems and methods for annotating and associating a comment with a content item available on a computer, TV or mobile (e.g., handheld) device using forms. The digital data artifacts may include at least user-defined and extensible artifacts, or pre-built artifacts, or comments and tags. Comments may include, but are not limited to, one or more of unstructured text, structured data (e.g., data entered or browsed to via a form), an audio or video file, tags, etc. The artifacts may act as a classification system for a user. A method embodying the invention includes navigating to a content item for comment or annotation, and selecting a tag set and/or a form, which is filled in and used to comment on the item and then saved in a database. A tagging or data association server saves the form and user extensible tag set and related files and data sets with the content item and provides various presentation, analysis and information retrieval functionalities. Community responses to the form may be analyzed by semantic analysis and subsequent aggregation and display of the form data.