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Here's another reason why metadata mattersThe ShowYou video app puts metadata (or the lack thereof) in the spotlight.While putting the new ShowYou video aggregation app through its paces I was struck once again by the importance of titles, descriptions, and other forms of metadata. Take a look at this screenshot:
What the heck am I supposed to click on? Where are the entry points? Some of the images are intriguing, but the vague titles don't answer the single most important question: Why should I spend time and energy on this? This is partially an interface issue, but I place most of the blame on content creators. Many of us have bad metadata habits. I don't get any real joy out of writing headlines, subheads, and excerpts. Tagging, while easy, is still a mind-numbing chore. But I force myself to do these things because I want the content I manage to be seen. That's the point, after all. Metadata helps with that. The area where metadata is most important, however, is video. That content is locked within formats that are generally inaccessible to search spiders and aggregation bots. There's no way to know about the insightful perspective captured at a clip's 2-minute mark or the funny pratfall 45 seconds in. Left unaddressed, most video clips have the discovery prowess of a "DSC0000.jpg" file. That's why a random video still and a vague title won't cut it. We need metadata to extract the value and explain why a clip is worth viewing. Like everyone else, I wish metadata was easier to create. But it's not, and it's not going to be for a long time. You cannot auto generate a useful title and you can't pluck the first 200 characters from a blog post and expect an appropriate excerpt to magically appear — well, you can do those things, but you shouldn't. And as aggregation apps like ShowYou and Flipboard and others clearly illustrate, content that's separated from its container depends on metadata to amplify its signal. This stuff matters. Metadata is now both a competitive advantage and a competitive necessity. And if we really want content to be found and audiences to be served and apps and revenue to be created, we'll give metadata — annoying as it may be — the attention it deserves. Related:
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Comments: 6
Eric Likness [18 April 2011 06:55 AM]
I think your coleague Jon Udell would agree with you. Creating metadata is something we should all get better at so that everyone can find and consume/re-use our content. Check out: Heds, Deks and ledes
http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/11/heds-deks-and-ledes.html
Mac Slocum [18 April 2011 07:02 AM]
@Eric: You're absolutely right (and I know that piece well!). Thanks for calling that one out. I'm going to add it to the related links section.
Mark Hall [18 April 2011 09:07 AM]
I'm one of the creators of Showyou, and I'd disagree with you a little.
We also happen to run another web video service, one that's pretty popular, called Vodpod.com. It's all about the metadata. We push our users to enter title, tags, description every time they collect a video. So it's full of very rich metadata. We probably have aggregated at Vodpod the most metadata on the biggest set of videos from the web.
But we see even much higher levels of engagement (and, indeed, joy) from Showyou where as you point out we don't provide a ton of metadata. Why? Because one of the biggest and most important pieces of metadata is social -- "who" shared the video? Indeed, I'd argue that's more more important than the title, tags or description. Second most important piece of information is the thumbnail -- video is a visual medium after all. The thumbnail tells us quite a bit about what we're going to see.
The title is definitely the biggest area where there is room for improvement. Titles entered on the original sites can often be useless, or cryptic. That's an area where I think we can make some improvement going forward.
Also, on a practical note, another reason we didn't require or provide metadata on the screen? It makes the interface far more cluttered, and less easy to read, and starts to feel like work. We wanted to build something fun -- and jamming metadata in their started to make it feel like work.
Mac Slocum [18 April 2011 09:44 AM]
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the comment.
To clarify -- and this applies beyond just ShowYou -- I put the onus on the content *creators*. Folks like yourself have the ability to aggregate and display all that content in great and innovative ways, but without metadata you won't have the information needed to display it in even *greater* ways. You can't use what isn't there.
The metadata has to come from the people who create this stuff. I don't think you guys should have to require anything for people to fully take advantage of your platform. That's not on you. That's on the content creators.
Put another way: Most people wouldn't publish a blog post without a headline because how the heck would anyone find it? Yet, many people post video without any consideration of *how* or *why* someone would take the time to watch that clip.
(And to quibble with one thing you wrote -- while I do think the "who" is a very important signal, the "why should I watch this?" is also valuable.)
Finally, it's not the amount of metadata that I think is important. It's the utility and value *of* the metadata. Too often the metadata that's present is hastily assembled. It's a chore that people look to zip past. But in doing that they're undermining potential opportunities -- i.e. someone who really wants their content to be discovered through your platform and others should put extra effort into crafting engaging titles. Otherwise, they're missing the opportunity.
Mark Hall [18 April 2011 01:46 PM]
Mac-
That's extremely helpful context. I completely agree with you.
The biggest issue we see -- and this is a particularly acute problem with many, many YouTube videos -- is poor choice of titles for the video.
Second biggest issue is lack of a compelling or very useful description.
With content and programming increasingly atomized -- a video on YouTube can appear on 1000s of sites or in dozens of apps like Showyou -- providing clear, meaningful titles and descriptions is critical. Which, as I reread your post and your comment, is your point. Great post.
Mark
Mohan Arun [18 April 2011 06:46 PM]
Mac,
You say "I put the onus on the content *creators*." (for populating the metadata fields)
How about a model where *other users who need royalty-free pictures are required to describe the metadata of a couple of newly uploaded pictures in return for being able to download the free picture for their use?
Mohan