RE: [kEv] Universal Metadata - everybody's doing it...

["JG Rae" <jgr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is an interesting development, but the first thing I read on their
website was

"It's hard for anyone to make content available for access and use on the
network without any rules."

Actually, guys, it isn't hard at all. I remember designing EDI standards in
the 80's, and in those days it was a real slog, but one of the great
innovations of Web 2.0 is doing metadata by tagging, instead of by
taxonomies. If I call something "Motown" and you call it "soul", we don't
have to have a committee meeting to decide who's right. We can both be
right, because both tags give a positive response to different questions. 

Metadata for distributing content online is about answering "Please may
I..." questions, as opposed to "What is..." questions. Kendra has always
been well-placed in that respect, thanks to Daniel's initial slogan of "I
want stuff I like and I want to be able to pay for it" and we are quite
lucky that the paradigm is catching up with the attitude.  

I think it's quite important that the Metadata Summit asks people "what do
we want to do, that we think better metadata is going to help us do?" I
won't enlarge on that here, in case not everybody's following this thread,
but I will post something on the morning (UK morning).

Having read a little deeper into their FAQ, it turns out ACAP are trying to
develop something to replace the robots.txt protocol so that sites can allow
conditional access for search engines accessing text-based media. That's a
good deal less ambitious than Kendra's signposting, discovery and
syndication. Their FAQ is very defensive; it's all about how it's not a
defensive move to stop Google. 

Regards, Gordon


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-k-events@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-k-events@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Daniel Harris
Sent: 01 March 2007 08:40
To: k-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; k-events@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [kEv] Universal Metadata - everybody's doing it...

Take a look at what Jollyon sent me...

ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol) is a joint initiative by the World
Association of Newspapers, the International Publishers Association and the