Re: How to encode a product family?

Thanks Martin and all for the detailed responses. I think I understand a bit better how it could be done now.

What do you think of the following?

[[
## I still feel like we could have schema:ProductFamily as a subclass of schema:Brand
<http://www.apple.com/iphone/#thing> a schema:Brand ;
  schema:url <http://www.apple.com/iphone/> ;
  schema:name "iPhone" .

<http://www.apple.com/iphone-5/#thing> a schema:ProductModel ;
  ## note /iphone-5/ now redirects to /iphone/
  schema:url <http://www.apple.com/iphone/> ;
  schema:name "iPhone 5" ;
  schema:brand <http://www.apple.com/iphone/#thing> .

<http://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/#thing> a schema:ProductModel ;
  schema:url <http://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/> ;
  schema:name "iPhone 6s" ;
  schema:brand <http://www.apple.com/iphone/#thing> .

<http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone6s#gray_64gb> a schema:ProductModel ;
  schema:url <http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone6s> ;
  schema:name "iPhone 6s Space-Grey, 64 GB" ;
  schema:isVariantOf <http://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/#thing> .
]]

Note that in our case, we need to be precise about the entities we manipulate, and where they appear. Our database is www.apple.com.

Best,
Alexandre


> On May 3, 2016, at 8:45 AM, Martin Hepp <mfhepp@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> when "product family" means a mere group of products that serve a similar purpose, I would use schema:category for the group (e.g. "iPhone"). schema:isVariantOf is meant for linking from base models to fully specified models.
> 
> 
> So here is what I would use:
> 
> @prefix pto: <http://www.productontology.org/id/> .
> 
> foo:iphone1 a schema:ProductModel, pto:Smartphone;
> 	schema:name "iPhone 1";
> 	schema:category "Apple iPhone Family".
> 
> 
> foo:iphone2 a schema:ProductModel, pto:Smartphone;
> 	schema:name "iPhone 2";
> 	schema:category "Apple iPhone Family".
> 
> foo:iphone3 a schema:ProductModel, pto:Smartphone;
> 	schema:name "iPhone 3";
> 	schema:category "Apple iPhone Family".
> 
> foo:iphone3gs a schema:ProductModel, pto:Smartphone;
> 	schema:name "iPhone 3 GS";
> 	schema:category "Apple iPhone Family".
> 
> foo:iphone4 a schema:ProductModel, pto:Smartphone;
> 	schema:name "iPhone 4";
> 	schema:category "Apple iPhone Family".
> 
> foo:iphone5 a schema:ProductModel, pto:Smartphone;
> 	schema:name "iPhone 5";
> 	schema:category "Apple iPhone Family".
> 
> foo:iphone5se a schema:ProductModel, pto:Smartphone;
> 	schema:name "iPhone 5 SE";
> 	schema:category "Apple iPhone Family".
> 
> 
> Then, I would materialize all or the relevant fully specified models, like my new iPhone 5 SE in space-grey with 64 GB:
> 
> 
> foo:iphone5se_gray_64gb a schema:ProductModel, pto:Smartphone;
> 	schema:name "iPhone 5 SE Space-Grey, 64 GB";
> 	schema:category "Apple iPhone Family";
> 	schema:color "space gray";
> 	schema:additionalProperty 
> 		[ a schema:PropertyValue; 
> 		  schema:name "capacity";
> 		  schema:unitText "GB" ] .
> 	# add more features here, see http://schema.org/PropertyValue for examples
> 
> 
> Then I would state that each fully specified model is a variant of its base model:
> 
> foo:iphone5se_gray_64gb schema:isVariantOf foo:iphone5se.
> 
> You could also also indicate that the newer models are successors of the older ones:
> 
> foo:iphone5se schema:successorOf foo:iphone5 .
> foo:iphone5 schema:successorOf foo:iphone4 .
> foo:iphone3gs schema:successorOf foo:iphone3 . 
> foo:iphone3 schema:successorOf foo:iphone2 .
> foo:iphone2 schema:successorOf foo:iphone1 .
> 
> 
> Note that successorOf is intended to be transitive (see http://www.heppnetz.de/ontologies/goodrelations/v1.html#successorOf), but we have not yet made this explicit in schema.org, because meta-properties for properties were not supported initially.
> 
> schema:isVariant is not transititve, because properties should be passed from the generic model to the fully specified ones with a pragmatic mechanism for overriding a property (a property will not be passed along if it is already locally specified, see http://wiki.goodrelations-vocabulary.org/Axioms#Recommended_Default_Rules). For this, the ordering of inferences can matter as soon as we have more than one level of hierarchy. If you allow complex variant relationships, the reasoning gets very difficult.
> 
> 
> Further references (not all up to date):
> 
> http://wiki.goodrelations-vocabulary.org/Documentation/Product_variants
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2011Oct/0040.html
> 
> 
> Hope that helps!
> 
> Martin
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------
> martin hepp  http://www.heppnetz.de
> mhepp@computer.org          @mfhepp
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 03 May 2016, at 17:18, Dan Brickley <danbri@google.com> wrote:
>> 
>> +Martin Hepp
>> 
>> On 3 May 2016 at 16:01, Alexandre Bertails <bertails@apple.com> wrote:
>>> Folks,
>>> 
>>> I am trying to encode the following things in Schema.org:
>>> 
>>> 1. "iPhone is a Product family."
>>> 
>>> 2. "iPhone 6s is part of the iPhone Product family."
>>> 
>>> 3. all the Products of a Product family would be related to each other (schema:isRelatedTo), and/or similar to each other (schema:isSimilarTo).
>>> 
>>> Except for 3., I cannot find something that would capture exactly the notion of Product family.
>> 
>> 
>> You might look at http://schema.org/ProductModel and isVariantOf ("A
>> pointer to a base product from which this product is a variant. It is
>> safe to infer that the variant inherits all product features from the
>> base model, unless defined locally. This is not transitive.") and
>> predecessorOf/successorOf (which I now see should be marked as mutual
>> inverses, issue filed as
>> https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/1142 ).
>> 
>> I guess you'd need to figure out the constant "essence of iPhone" and
>> make a generic ProductModel for that, and then relate them. I'm not
>> sure how deep you'd want this to go e.g. I have an (excellent if
>> ageing) iPad Mini, presumably part of an iPad Product family; would se
>> use isSimilarTo vs iSvariantOf to link iPhone and iPad families
>> together?
>> 
>> Dan
>> 
>> 
>>> Any idea?
>>> 
>>> Alexandre
>

Received on Tuesday, 3 May 2016 18:39:05 UTC