October 20, 2009
I can only see metadata, XMP specifically, becoming more important if
this new “Cloud Rule” begins to take hold with customers.
Google’s Data Liberation Front springs from customer
altruism but it also builds pressure in the industry to provide data
portability with cloud based services. For the customer, it removes
the ‘icky’ from the stickyness of web based services, for the service
providers it removes an excuse for not keeping their services
competitive.
Yet to be seen if this will put pressure on services like Facebook and
Picassa to allow them to export them images with socially added tags
embedded in the images.
Last I checked none of the description, keywords or ratings I added
online at Photoshop.com were preserved in the photo I downloaded.
October 19, 2009
The Metadata Working Group (MWG) has recent posted Test Files for verifying The Guidelines for Handling Image Metadata. These files are critical for developers that are handling image metadata in their applications or services. Especially if they trying to reconcile IIM-IPTC, Exif, and XMP metadata.
The specification and the test files are the result of the great collaboration between the companies the make up the MWG: Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia, and Sony.
The topic may be pretty esoteric or dry for most but metadata interoperability will be increasing important in improving our digital experience. The rate of sharing digital images is exploding. The ability to tag and sharing information related to those images as they move from phone/camera to OS, to application, to online service and then back to a phone is critical in providing the foundation for the sharing and personalization experiences.
It also provides the foundation for sharing and preserving important information such as copyright and rights usage. Embedded metadata such as XMP is becoming the communication channel that is carried with the media – it can carry the connections to build businesses – think about embedding your business card info in your media, or even e-commerce related information about how to license the image or purchase what is in the picture.
