Re: Best schema to use for services

I don't really have issues with Product. So far I have been able to do just
about everything with it that comes to mind. I do notice however that many
people find the term 'Product' itself confusing. Especially for
people/companies that don't sell physical items but sell a service.
Questions like David Deering's aren't uncommon because the words 'Product'
and 'Service' in the minds of many people don't mean the same thing and
thus they get lost when deciding which Thing to use. That's why I came with
the idea of maybe introducing a 'Service' item. And not because I feel
Product is missing anything.


On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 7:19 PM, Dan Scott <dan@coffeecode.net> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 01:28:18PM +0200, Jarno van Driel wrote:
> > Good question, I have been struggling with this as well.
> >
> > I use schema.org/ProfessionalService for generic service-businesses and
> > than mark up the pages, about the services the company delivers, with
> > schema.org/Product. Now I don't want to argue whether it's the ultimate
> > method of accomplishing something like this, it's simply the way I do it
> > because I'm not aware of any another method that does the job better.
> > Probable there should be a way to mark up services as their own Thing
> > instead of abusing schema.org/Product for this but for now there's
> isn't a
> > method/vocabulary which allows us to do so that I'm aware of.
>
> Hi Jarno:
>
> Given that the description of http://schema.org/Product includes
> "Commodity services, like haircuts, can also be represented using this
> type.", it seems that using Product to represent a service is a pretty
> reasonable approach.
>
> I suppose Product has a number of properties that would generally not be
> applicable to services, but the
> ProfessionalService->makesOffer->Offer->itemOffered->Product
> set of relationships makes sense (to me, at least). (Okay, "itemOffered"
> is a more specific property name than one might have liked, but at this
> point it is probably entrenched in the same way that the "seller"
> property is).
>
> In any case: do you have any specific, actionable concerns that we can
> discuss about using Product for services? Missing properties or the
> like?
>
> Dan
>