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May 06, 2003

Does Metadata Work on the Web?

Interesting article in the latest issue of Information Research on whether metadata works on the Web. Terrence A. Brooks argues that the old assumptions about information retrieval don't map to the Web:

Web resources are characterized as evolving, not static, resources. They are more like loose-leaf binder services than time-invariant database records:

Further, Brooks argues, if common metadata schema were used, they would be exploited by spammers and other scum-based life forms, which is why Google won't tell us exactly how PageRank is determined.

He concludes that pages on the open Web are "poor hosts for topical metadata."

Posted by D. Weinberger at May 6, 2003 10:08 AM

Comments

He's right, and he's wrong. Get ready for the blog spammers, self-promoters, and other "bad agents". The problem is not with Metadata - it is with trusting self-created metadata. That's where aggregators like Google (and some other search engines I know of... hmmm, which one was that again?) step up andfilter the wheat from the chaff.

But hey, if you type in penis enlargement into Google, it'll give you a great list of links... :-)

Dave

Posted by: David Sifry | May 7, 2003 12:17 PM

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