Category: Taxonomy And Metadata

It seems that metadata remains a hot topic in DAM at the moment.  DAM consultants, Daydream have released an updated white paper entitled: “Metadata Management Strategies for Marketing Based Digital Asset Management”.

The key points are:

• The reasons for low ROI from DAM systems.
• How low quality metadata can be

Writing on the Archive Media Partners blog, Kim Schroeder discusses the issues that can result from trying to use automated indexing or low-quality human resources who lack an understanding of the nuances of the subject matter.

She points out that the cost savings that these alternatives claim to offer …

Prestigious photo agency, Magnum Photos, has teamed up with New York start-up Tagasauris to harness the facilities of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk services to revamp their image metadata, it was revealed recently.  The venture significantly reduces the labour-intensive overhead that metadata entry incurs by farming out the task to the enormous …

Writing on the Archive Media Partners blog, Margie Friant critiques those DAM vendors who claim that their software can replace manual tagging carried out by human indexers:

“Isn’t it about time that we, as a profession, sell our abilities as well as the DAM system vendors sell their …

Kate Simpson, writing on FUMSI discusses a tactical alternative to a full information audit using Content Analysis to define the ‘landscape’ of the content in an existing repository that requires optimisation.  She identifies four key areas for a summary Content Analysis exercise:

• The ‘As Is’ Landscape
• Content and Usage Metrics

Jenn Webb has an interview with Laura Dawson, Chief of Content at Firebrand Technologies on the O’Reilly Radar site.  Laura explains how she sees metadata as an essential tool for publishers in order to gain competitive advantage:

“Rather than groaning about how maintaining good metadata is a chore, publishers …

The Metadata Working Group which counts Adobe, Nokia, Sony, Apple and Microsoft amongst its number has recently published an updated set of guidelines for handling image metadata:

“Consumer sharing of still images has exploded with the maturing of Internet services for the storage, manipulation, and sharing of pictures. However, …

Photo metadata and controlled vocabularies guru, David Riecks has written an article on why search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo ignore embedded metadata and, as such, advice that you might read about including it for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) purposes is essentially wrong:

“It is possible …

David Riecks, Richard Wagner, Bob Stromberg and other contributors to the Controlled Vocabulary forum have compiled their 12 top myths about embedded metadata:

1. Embedded photo metadata is something that is hard to read unless you have Photoshop or some other professional software application.
2. If I embed my copyright (or

Ken Colburn writing for the East Valley Tribune describes EXIF data in layman’s terms and explains what kind of information may be held about photos.  In particular, the question of whether EXIF data can be used to determine where a photo was taken is discussed:

“In the case of …

In their continuing “eTaxonomy” series, Earley associates consider areas where taxonomies (and the information science theory behind them) have been integrated into IT solutions:

• Search
• Document and Records Management
• Content Management
• Digital Asset Management
• Ecommerce
• Marketing Campaign Management

This is taken from their Digital Asset Management entry:

“We are …

Heather Hedden, author of The Accidental Taxonomist has written an overview of the software tools available for developing taxonomies for FUMSI.com.  She covers six main categories:

• Software Not Designed for Creating Taxonomies
• Thesaurus Software
• Single-User Desktop Thesaurus Software
• Free and Open Source Software
• Other Software with Taxonomy Management Components