Metadata

[Drew Peacock]

I have a stupid/genius business idea.

I want more metadata included with CDs and downloads. Metadata is information about data, in this case it is the individual song or recording.

I want the liner notes added to each tune. I want to know who is playing, who engineered, who shot the photo on the cover, etc. I'd like to have the images from the CD covers and inserts included, and I'd like to be able to view and scroll through all this information on my iPod as I listen. Give me as much information as possible, added to each song in metadata format.

Then, when that tune is added to my collection, I want it to appear in a relational database that I can search and use to generate reports. It should also create playlists for mp3 player downloads of the files using multiple filter criteria.

***

My observations lead me to believe that there is a market for such a product. Are many of you are also frustrated with the limitations and errors with the metadata that is currently available? Would you pay extra to have it provided, along with the tools I mentioned above?

Edited July 27, 2009 by Drew Peacock

[WD45]

Yes

I find it odd that the CDDB that iTunes connects with can't provide all of this.

Pat of the problem, I would imagine, is standardization & formatting. Would it all go in the comments field?

[mjzee]

I imagine it would have to be accompanied with a 3rd-party add-on to iTunes (because where would this data be displayed and indexed?), which Apple probably would not allow. There's probably also a matter of paying extra royalties to liner note writers. Finally, if it adds too much to the cost, it would make buying CDs more attractive (there is a downside to buying mp3's...look at the contretemps surrounding Amazon's taking back the Orwell sales; no such ownership problems exist with CDs).

Having said all that, I would love to have this additional data available.

[Joe]

Apple seems to be working on adding this content to their digital music offerings...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28129982-7a18-11...144feabdc0.html

[BeBop]

My make-a-million idea a few years back was to scan back covers of albums either instead of or in addition to the cover art. For me, the back/liner is where the 'action' is.

[clifford_thornton]

The liner notes should be separate from any sort of metadata scheme you might use.

If your metadata schematic looks like something out of, say, photoshop (that's what we use as a dummy format in the archives for image and non-image files), fields like Artist, Title, Recording Date, Release Year, etc. might be more along the lines of what you'd need.

[Chuck Nessa]

and with all that info you have everything when you download flac files from some blog. nice.

[.:.impossible]

Metadata would make a good name for some indie metal math rock band. Two synth players of course.

[papsrus]

Metadata would make a good name for some indie metal math rock band. Two synth players of course.

How about MetaDada?

[Drew Peacock]

I saw the other thread on the iTunes initiative and my heart sank a bit. I'm going to explore this a bit more before throwing in the towel as it does seem that there would be value in this type of service. It seems that everything is moving to cloud computing at a fast pace. With the new iPod Touches having WiFi access it opens up many ways in which a business model could be created, and it would not need to interact with iTunes other than being able to recognize the song that is playing.

I could envision it also attached to streaming services like spotify.

In addition to the royalties other major costs would include database programming, website hosting/gear, data entry (a lot of data entry), legal, marketing. I suspect to make it 'really' good it would have to analyze your current collection and automatically download (or make available in the cloud with push technologies) the appropriate metadata files.