Metadata Blues

July 20, 2010 · Posted in Technology · Comment 

Why can’t I associate a caption with a .jpg or .png file and have it recognized (and, if appropriate, displayed) no matter what file browser, photo manager, photo editor, layout program or web publishing platform I use and no matter which operating system I use?

How come we still don’t have a standard for e-books and web pages that represents a page-like unit of text so that it’s easier to reference where one is in an electronic text no matter the font size?

Why doesn’t WordPress auto-de-dupe the tags that are only off by a misspelling, shortening of a word, or the use of hyphens?

Why doesn’t every e-mail program (web or client-based) have an option where you can add tags to and file to a folder to an e-mail you are sending right before you hit the send button?

Why are tables of contents in e-books so lame?

Why do content management systems still spit out incomprehensible URLs?

How come stories on newspaper websites don’t thread over time? (or at least: why are the “suggest” or “related” features on newspaper websites so often incomplete or irrelevant?)

How come you don’t get both a “last saved” and a “last edited” timestamp that’s easy to view on all OSes with files of any type that displays in the same way across operating systems?

Why don’t people add metadata to PDF files, like ever? (even people who should know better)

I don’t know for sure. Perhaps it’s that technology, especially search, makes allowances for us. Perhaps it’s that there are no consequences to the lack of speed and piling up of un-indexed or un-easily-searched image files and documents and e-mails. Perhaps metadata doesn’t have the right branding*. Perhaps we simply don’t expect the same sense and consistency across products that we do from, say, prescriptions or ingredients labels. We just don’t have the same expectations for electronic files that we have for physical objects.

Of course, when augmented reality — when the internet of things — really takes off, well, we’re going to be singing the blues with much more feeling if everyday users (and the companies that sell to them) don’t embrace the smart use of metadata.

*Maybe we need a metadata button (like an rss button or the x that means “close this window”) that displays metadata when clicked

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How immersive digital experiences should deal with calls to action

July 12, 2010 · Posted in Advertising, Technology · Comment 

So Steve Jobs has it all figured out how we’re going to consume ads in an immersive experience like an iPad app. The solution seems to be to make another app that has content so great that you’ll want to experience it. That may make sense for highly creative products like films or books or high ticket items like cars or high-end electronics, but that doesn’t really help consumer product and food companies, small businesses, etc. Not only would creating such experiences be costly and time intensive, but making commercials that require even more time to consume is likely to get old with consumers.

The other options are to do what we essentially have now — video ads in anything streaming (game, Hulu app, whatever) and basically print ads in anything to be read (like a magazine app). The problem there is that all you can capture is mindshare, which is no improvement over what print and television already offered — but with, usually, a much smaller audience.

It seems to me that the most nonobtrusive but still effective way to go about this is to provide a discrete button during a video ad or on a static ad that consumers can click that triggers an action that doesn’t jerk them out of their experience. How could this be done?

One thing Hulu does is pop up a fairly non-intrusive dialog  during its commercials that asks “Is this ad relevant to you?” and provides a “yes” and “no” button. It’s non-intrusive because it shows up in the frame rather across the “screen” itself. I suggest a modification of this that provides a simple “more” text button or perhaps an icon (that hopefully gains traction and becomes universal) that is displayed discreetly in the frame around the video or static/Flash animation ad. When clicked (or more likely touched since this is really intended to work with tablet apps), an action is triggered that takes place in the background. This could be everything from send you a link in an e-mail or text message to bookmark the site to Delicious to add an item to Google reader. Ideally, the platform for this call to action would be able to thread itself through most of the apps and would customizable by the user. The user him or herself could choose what the action is, thus setting the zone where he or she is willing to receive more information or coupons or a request to sign up for a mailing list of like a page on a social media site.

I also suggest that the follow up to the call of action, the thing that is triggered by touching the “more” button be heavy on the informational side of things. Advertisers can deliver the emotion in the ad. If consumers are interested, then the next step is to provide them with something that allows them to indicate that interest without jerking them out of the immersive experience, the app that they are currently in. Add in (depending on the app and advertiser) location awareness and a build up of consumer preference information, and I think you have an effective advertising platform that consumers will be more willing to engage with.

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Persistent conversation among people I trust

July 6, 2010 · Posted in Culture, Education, Journalism, Technology · Comment 

I recently went in and cleaned up the more than 900 items I had starred in Google Reader going back to 2006. At least half of them  were on recurring topics — personal finance, literary criticism, social media tracking, economics, food, etc. — that I like to follow closely (thus why they had been starred).  But I had no trouble letting most of them go because, well, the conversation has moved on and things change and, to be honest, part of me was saying “hey, they’re only blog posts.” Don’t get me wrong — I love form and have been reading blogs since Instapundit just started out and have regularly blogged since 2004. But although blogs are a good way to generate current conversation, they suck when it comes to persistent conversation across time. Digging into archives can be very hit or miss (and tags and categories only take you so far, especially with a blog that has been around awhile). And even if comments aren’t closed on an older post, chances are the conversation is not going to be re-ignited. Also because of the semi-casual nature of blogs, both posts and comments don’t focus on real tight writing on thought.

On the other hand, Wikipedia is excellent for persistent content over time. Entries get updated, refined and fleshed out. Changes to the page are tracked and made available to the casual reader. But the problem with Wikipedia is that it’s only an encyclopedia. It’s tone and scope is focused on factual, relevant content.

And finally, scholarship, as it is made available in academic journals, and public intellectualism, as it is made available in magazines and newspapers, can often be great and producing polished work and work that is in conversation with others in the field. But you often have to slog through a lot in order to get to what you find interesting and conversations get off track and some of it is just too specialized.

So here’s what I want: a way to read a persistent, focused conversation on specialized topics I’m interested in undertaken by people I trust, admire, tolerate, hate or whatever but at least am willing to listen to that is set up in such a way to occur over days, months, years. I’m still mulling over what form this might take. More later when things have fully coalesced.

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