Metadata News & Articles

In my first article on The Semantic Web and the Modern Enterprise, I introduced the vision of the Semantic Web. I also discussed how the progress made while working towards that vision provides a strong foundation to help enterprises better deal with their information management challenges. In this article, we’ll take a high-level look at what the core Semantic Web technologies are, why they’re different from conventional technology approaches and how they deliver tangible benefits for enterprise information management.

Almost every content management (CM) book, presentation or other CM-related publication talks about metadata. So most CM people know what it is, what it's for and what it looks like.

But when it comes to insights about who manages the metadata, the available sources are quite limited and contradictory.

The newest version of the open source digital asset management (DAM) platform Razuna is now available.

Working with many of the techniques of Digital Forensics, Digital Preservationists are moving to the forefront in many institutions, bridging the gap between archivists, technologists and records managers.

A version is defined as a particular form or variant of something. In the case of Digital Asset Management (DAM), versions apply to digital assets and their respective metadata. Without version control and history in DAM, errors during the editing process can turn into disasters.

Metadata is important because it helps you and other DAM users find the right files (keywords), understand the content of the files you find (descriptions) and use those files correctly (rights management). That sounds great and all, but who is going to enter all that metadata?

The short answer is: hopefully someone else!

For over a decade the Semantic Web has been maligned, misconstrued and misunderstood. It’s been overhyped by its supporters while its critics have hung the albatross of artificial intelligence around its neck. Even its successes have been understated, often coming with little fanfare and without the mindshare and hype surrounding other trends such as Web 2.0, NoSQL or Big Data.

Auditing is not just for taxes or financials. If you want to bring clarity to the digital assets you have, auditing is one of the ways to do this. You can audit digital asset whether you have a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution today or not. The following is what you should think about ...

It’s a common story. An employee reads about how SharePoint is a great tool for document sharing and collaboration, a great place for teams to work on projects, a great tool for the company intranet. They go out, get approval for the software, get IT to install it on a server(s) and then they start moving documents and content over from file shares, from desktop folders, from old databases. Everyone starts to use it.

Oddly though, no one is happy.

Information is at the heart of what most enterprises do. For some it is their product and lifeblood; for others it lubricates all aspects of their operation. The fact is that, in one form or another, information management is vital for virtually any organization, particularly as tough economic conditions prevail, and the more efficiently enterprise content is controlled and accessed, the more effective organizations’ operations become. After all, we all operate in an ‘information economy’ these days.

Metalogix Software has released a solution that makes it faster and more efficient to manage content in Microsoft SharePoint 2010. The new solution, Content Manager, enhances SharePoint with the ability to make bulk edits to metadata and a ribbon that makes it easier for users to have access to advanced features such as taxonomy.

One thing many people do not think about enough is whether something will scale (up, out, in and/or down) as needed. Scalability is critical for any organization to consider if they plan to grow and thrive, not just survive. Otherwise, staying with decisions made in the short term will affect the organization rapidly in the long term.

Before getting into the main discussion points of this article, it is perhaps worth reviewing where we are in the overall DAM product life-cycle. I would argue that not only are we well into the growth stage of DAM, but that the maturity phase is in prospect in the medium term also.

This week we plan for the upcoming Henry Stewart DAM Conferences, look at the role DAM plays for university advertising assets, check out the Picturepark SDK public release and learn how to use -- not abuse -- digital assets on websites.

In light of this month's focus on Social Business, today's post looks at the collaborative potential of tags and how they can help inform taxonomies.