Ever look at photos of yourself as a baby? If you were born before the mid-1990’s, they’re probably in a heavy photo album on a dusty shelf, or maybe in a box in the attic. It’s nice to look through the album, sure, but you have to be at your parents’ house, and you have to climb that rickety pull-down ladder and get insulation all over your pajamas. Today’s digital baby photos can be shared on a phone, on Facebook, and even mass produced in physical photo books. The information is robust, it crosses platforms, it isn’t trapped in a single medium.
Metadata is information encoded in data about itself. For example, that first word, “metadata,” has been encoded with instructions to make it appear bold on your viewer. That it appears bold on a laptop, iPhone, or e-reader, is evidence that it is robust (it crosses platforms and isn’t limited to a single format).
Paper books don’t have much metadata. You can’t peel the ink from the page and view it on your iPad. It just doesn’t transfer. As the multitude of platforms for sharing information grows, good metadata will determine the reach and longevity of information.
Are you writing a book? In ten years, how easy will it be to upload it across platforms that aren’t even invented yet? If it isn’t easy, will it even get done?
[inspired by Adam Taplin's post from Ingrid Goldstein's article on semantic markup.]
I wrote this article for Flavorwire about two books that take full advantage of their paper natures. I’m not against the e-reader. It serves a good purpose in information delivery. But sometimes a story needs paper. Tree of Codes and House of Leaves are two books that don’t properly translate into an electronic medium.
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