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
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