What on Earth is Meta Data?
This has been a truly enlightening experience for me. Mike Collett expressed it best when he introduced the panel to discuss Meta data .
He showed a picture of a red shed, well it was actually a blue shed which was labelled "RED SHED" and talked about the fact that the Meta data is present on the object. Basically, Meta data is the information about stuff.
For example this picture here.
- When you click the link you’ll find that the meta data takes you to the correct place on flickr, and once there you’ll notice some information about the picture, when it was uploaded, tags (denoting ‘what it is about), who the creator was etc etc. All that is the metadata.
- It is the meta data that allows you to embed the same picture in your blog if you wish.
- It is meta data that allows you to link to this post, if you wish.
- It is meta data that powers RSS. Delivers delicious and digg etc etc.
The reason I mention it is that I didn’t know that this morning, I knew all about the stuff I mentioned above but I didn’t know it was called meta data.
