The Secret Power of Metadata
Following on from my last post, I would like you to think about your computer space, if you needed a file now, would you be able to find it?
If it’s anything like my old space then the answer is, yes, but it would take a while. Now, I am going to go a over a theory that has already been implemented a few times but never to full satisfaction, tagging.
In traditional (if it can be called that) web tagging, tags have been stored in a database, now this isn’t a problem because the image/link/document is always stored centrally somewhere on the web. On a normal desktop computer files are shuffled about, backed up, copied, emailed etc. This means that any central database is almost impossible to manage without a program constantly monitoring what happens to your files, and even then as soon as the file is moved to a different computer the metadata is lost forever.
This problem got me thinking, is there a way to store metadata so that it remains constant across folders, computers, operating systems etc. The problem is that any attempt to add metadata to file formats that have no accommodation for it will inevitably corrupt the file. So this means that the metadata must be stored externally, at least on some files, which means that for every data file there needs to be a sister file containing the metadata, and these must somehow be managed in a way that they get transferred with the original data file.
Now I can hear you all crying, “What’s the point of that you may as well put everything in a database and write a protocol to ensure that the values get transferred when the files do!”, Well in a way you’re right but the problem lies in what happens when a file is transferred to a system without a central meta database, the data has no where to go but still has to be preserved. This is where the sister files come in they don’t need a context in which to be transferred to since every major system under the sun supports plain text files. So as long as the sister file is kept with the main file the metadata can be preserved without the system needing a centralised system.
Unfortunately, I don’t like this solution, it is a bit messy and doesn’t solve the underlying problem, I hope that in the future metadata will be built into file formats, this is already happening with .mp3 and of course all the common web markup languages have this ability.
A Metadata Future?
So this is all very well but what use is it? Well I propose that this system could be used in the future as a basis to using tags to sort and search data on computers instead of the folders and file names we all use now. This will lead to far more accurate search since the metadata helps describe the file you are looking for so you no longer have to rely on the file name or type. This is something I am looking into developing, as my ideas become more structured.