Re: MCF's new implementation (via XML)

At 10:30 AM 6/17/97 -0400, Paul Prescod graced us with:
> An unattributed quote saying:
> > It *does* matter. Even as simple a META data schema as the one developed
> > by Sandia National Labs has been badly corrupted in practice. The ORIGINAL
> > specification calls for FOUR META elements: 
> > 
> > <meta name="description" content="">
> > <meta name="keywords" content="Internet, net">
> > <meta name="resource-type" content="document">
> > <meta name="distribution" content="global">
> > 
> > In practice this has been stripped down to:
> > 
> > <meta name="description" content="">
> > <meta name="keywords" content="Internet, net">
> > 
> > *Because users didn't understand the rest*

No, this was stripped down because *users didn't know about the rest*.
The popular search engines didn't publicize the rest, but only the
keywords/description pieces. I know many folks who only learned about
the metadata stuff from the somewhat limited AltaVista "how-to" page.

If any of the tutorials on popular search engines had contained links
to the Sandia info, we'd have a lot more information meta'd. 

MCF is going to need a "killer app", like the next generation of AV
LiveTopics or something, to really take off, but the complexity will
largely be taken care of by authoring tools for the dolts and smart,
handcoding folk will be able to pick it up quickly.

Steve


--
Steven Champeon                  | "It was sort of ironic, because here
Intranet Builder                 |  we were [talking] about what was going
http://www.hesketh.com/schampeo/ |  to be in [Windows 1.0] and we hadn't
http://www.jaundicedeye.com      |  even designed the product yet."
http://www.digitalaspect.com     |   -- Scott MacGregor, Microsoft, 1983

Received on Tuesday, 17 June 1997 11:11:06 UTC