The secret life of

metadataHow metadata may become the content strategy hero.

New York Library Lion

different disciplines

Archivists (information)Developers (technology)Designers / Editors (content)

AdministrativeDescriptive

Structural

unique attributes

presentation markup

format, rights, size

metadata is. . .

a descriptive assertion about something an access point into a content record a signal to aggregators, browsers, search

engines

Metadata makes decisions

what genre?

descriptive assertion

jazz, blues, vocalist, songwriter, torch songs, swing, big band, american standards, girl singer

Discovery

Access PointRecommendation EngineLinked Data

Curation

SignalAggregationSyndicationSearch EnginesLoss of Provenance (origin)

Metadata makes decisions

How we use it today

Faceted Search Content Management Personalization APIs SEO

metadata is hard

Controlling language politics of classification burden of tagging authors and experts training and

maintenance

is a metadata strategy optional?

Cope – 3rd parties

Courtesy of Sara Wachter-Boettcher

Third Parties

metadata is. . . a descriptive assertion about something an access point into a content record a signal to aggregators, browsers, search

engines

metadata is the adhesive that provides structure and the common language that promotes

interoperability

contextthings, not strings: Google’s knowledge graph

how the web has changed

routes to content Search is the home page The web is the CMS Devices, Robots, Developers get

our content first and decide where it appears

Knowledge graph in action

Search flu & vaccine

Publishing Recipes

Mug cake

Who will interpret your meaning?

interpretation Robots want rules.

content: pack it for solo travel

Is it something you search by? sort by?

How could it relate to other content?

How might it be extracted or displayed?

How may it be reprioritized or resized?

a descriptive assertion about something an access point into a content record a signal to aggregators, browsers, search engines

metadata is the adhesive that provides structure and the common language that promotes interoperability

metadata is. . .

that allows content to travel alone

The irony of controlYou must have control to relinquish it. Utilize and contribute to existing, extensible schemas and standards.

Schema.orgmanaged by Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex

Dublin Core

MODS (Federal Register)

Fly! Be free!

Common Language Outgrow WYSIWIG Pages to Parts Content as atoms/molecules Recognize Relationships Rule the Robots

semantic web thinking changes the way we work:

• we focus on things and the relationships between them as opposed to the documents

• we introduce a culture of building with open vocabularies to add context and links and

• we maximize the value we get out of our tagging of content..

–bbc digital

The content and the audience must connect

find the audience

reaching audiences making connections viral knowledge colleagues not

competitors

 Customers don't know — and don't care to know — how government is organized.

So why make them go from agency to agency to get the full picture of what gov't has to offer on any subject?

-Participant in the National Dialogue in improving government websites