MicroContent Musings

From file systems to microcontent data silos

Recent comments on the iPad made me realise something: Apple is very slowly moving away from a generic file system to microcontent silo’s. I am not sure about the how and when, but I recognise the following steps.

I think it all started with the Address Book application. This standard address book already existed during the NeXT-period. This application allows a user to manage contact information about persons. For each person (or business) the application creates a card. These cards are stored in a data silo (AddressBook.data). This data silo is a closed one, i.e. I am not able to look into it, but through the AddressBook application. As other applications also like to use address information, Apple created an API in order to get access (and change) this data. So what one sees here is a closed data structure, which is only accessible through Apple created and authorised API’s. Note that in NeXTstep this silo was more open, i.e. one could see the individual cards as separate files.

With the introduction of MacOSX a more structured approach towards file organisation was chosen. We saw the introduction of standard folders for Pictures, Movies, Music and Documents. This approach is also inherited from NeXTstep, but has been extended to more file types. Naturally the corresponding application such as iTunes and iPhoto stored their data in these folders.

However there is no guarantee that users did indeed store their corresponding data in these folders. When starting iTunes for the first time, it asked the user if it should consolidate all the music files of the users. This implied that all the files iTunes could find would be copied into the iTunes music folders. And there is still a preference for making a copy of music files when importing. And iPhoto has taken a similar approach to images. In addition iTunes and iPhoto force a detailed folder structure.

In the beginning we only had open silo’s. Users could still access the individual files through the Finder. A drawback of this is that users can corrupt the database. So for iPhoto Apple closed this hole (I am not sure at what version of the app this happened). They hid the photo file structure in a package, which is not easily accessible. In the file browser a user will see just a single file for the entire library.

With the closing of the images folder structure a real data silo has been created. As images are no longer easy to access through the browser, another access method is required. For their applications, such as Pages, Apple introduced the Media Browser. Through this Media Browser window users can access the data silos of iPhoto and iTunes and the Movies folder.

Unfortunately this is only a limited access to the images and music. It could be extended to the whole pictures and music folders. Also the usage of this media browser approach seems to be limited to applications created by Apple. As a solution to this Karelia introduced the iMedia Browser. With this iMedia browser one can access the entire pictures and music folder.

The number of microcontent types which have a corresponding data silo is slowly growing. The iMedia Browser added the microcontent type links. This window pane maps the bookmark folders of various web browsers. Also iTunes added a whole series of subcategories for ‘music’ (audiobooks, movies, iTunes U, applications), which diluted the idea of the music folder. However with time the iTunes app enlarged the coverage of this data silo to other MicroContent types. I am not sure whether this is a good thing though.

In addition to these Apple data silo’s, we have also application specific silo’s. Thus an application such as MacGourmet has it’s own database for recipes, which is not sharable with other recipe applications.

With the advent of the iPhoneOs we see another closing step. No longer a file browser is available to the users. There are only application specific data silo’s. No longer the user can mess with the files. If an application would like to use another data silo, it has to go through Apple defined API’s. This access method might entail a privacy risk, which need to be closed. This security risk also exists under MacOSX, but seems less relevant because less application are installed.

It seems that Apple has created some other data silo’s, but it is unclear which without access to the developer tools. Hardcore users are able to access the folders and files on the iPhone. The usage and access to this folders is deemed illegal by Apple.

The iPad seems to extend the idea of data silo’s to any document type. The idea seems to be that each application has it’s own silo. Naturally the iPad knows the standard MicroContent types as pictures and music. But we also see YouTube Video’s and iBooks. This is a fairly logical extension. However they also use the idea for more generic document types, such as presentations. The application suite iWork for the iPad also supports a media browser, so there is a method to mix MicroContent types.

For users I guess this is all a good development. Things will become much easier. I hope however that an extra method, such as tags, of organising files will introduced. I have doubts whether the current approach is sufficient when there are lots of files (or should I say MicroContent Items?).

Categories/tags: MicroContent • mashing • type • audio • bookmark • video
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YouTube numbers

TechCrunch republishes some interesting numbers on YouTube. YouTube us the dominant player in the online video publishing and viewing world. It really shows that brands are ever important in the online world. And that means not only aggregators and search services, such as Google, but also hosters (video in this case) such as YouTube. If you want to be found, you just have to go through YouTube. Unfortunately this also means that the distributed world, the mesh, is still not here.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video , youtube
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US online video market

MacWorld rehashes some news from comScore on the online video market. People look at video online more and more. It is now at 181 minutes per month, which is not much yet compared to standard television though. YouTube is a leading provider with 27% of total video's. Interestingly the second popular is Yahoo, but only with 4.3% market-share. The top 5 only provide 40% of the clips. So video is a very widespread phenomenon.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video , market, us
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Tagging, a disruption?

A nice discussion on the question whether tagging is a disruptive innovation. If I look at myself, I do not find it disruptive, yet? I am still struggling in using it. I like to use it, but have not yet find the right workflow. I am investigating whether I can extend tagging to the files in my filesystem.

The question of disruption is interesting. Are there other themes in the MicroContent world worthy of disruption. If I think about audio, video and images, I do see a disruption. For digital images it is all clear, the old camera passed away already. Sharing, printing and taking images is now done in a totally different way. And I guess the same is now how happening for audio. And we are just waiting for it to happen in the video market.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • field • tag • type • audio • video
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DLNA

I just discover this new acronym, DLNA. It stands for Digital Living Network Alliance. It is all about scharing audio, video and images through a local network. This sounds very MicroContent-like. The idea is that a DLNA-server can publish these MicroContent types towards DLNA-clients. And that is how I discovered. The latest upgrade of the Playstation 3 sofware, version 1.8, contains a DLNA-client.

So I started right away looking for a server that would publish these MicroContent types on my Mac to the world. And there does not seem to be much. I found TwonkyMedia by Twonky Vision. It seems to work reasonably, I can not see all file types, but that seems to be a problem of the PS3. STill have to investigate a bit further. Installation is very simple and configuration does not seem necessary.

I wonder whether DLNA can be extended to other MicroContent types?

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • audio • video
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Stumbleupon Video on Wii

After last.tv, now also StumbleUpon Video has set up a special channel for the Wii, i.e. under the Opera browser. StumbleUpon Video has created several channels based on subjects (tags?), such as animals, games, etc. Then the video's are show in the Opera browser. The video's are taken from various sources, such as Youtube. Users can skip video's and approve or disapprove of a video. Interestingly this has been done through the arrow buttons on the Wiimote. I assume that this helps in selecting the videos that I like. I still have to figure out whether these recommendations are any good.

I have to play with it a bit more, but it looks interesting. It just shows what you can do when you marry the web and a television. It is a way to create personalised TV channels with publicly available video's.

[Inspiration TechCrunch]

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video , console, wii
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Wii Transfer

I have been playing a bit with Wii Transfer. This small application allows me to access audio and images residing on my Mac from my Wii. It uses the Opera browser on the Wii. A nice way to get at the MicroContent on my PC. The interface is very nice, i.e. very simple. Probably it will be able to access the video's in the future as well. this however requires a streaming solution as the Wii does not have much storage space.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • audio • video
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MicroContent in the living room

When we talk about MicroContent we usually assume the PC as the environment for interacting with it. Naturally this is slowly moving into MP3-players with audio and video, and also on mobile phones. Naturally also the television in the living must be seen as such an environment. And with the browser on the Wii my interest in this environment has started, again.

The last time I looked at this environment in combination with the Internet was many years ago with a web-browser on the Sega Saturn, on Philips CDi, the WebTV terminal and other devices. I never got enthusiastic about this and stopped pursuing it. And I must say the web-browser on the Wii does help. The Web on a television screen is still a lousy combination. The lack of resolution, screen space and viewing distance make reading a standard web-page very hard. This can only be solved by creating television screen specific style sheets. I have no idea whether any advances have been made here. Aren't there any special pages for web-tv?

After playing a bit with the web-browser on the Wii, I see some possibilities of MicroContent on TV's. The first MicroContent Types that come to mind are news in the form of blogs, video (naturally), audio, images and weather. This can be in the form of dedicated applications or services. Just look at the Wii weather channel. And I am anxiously awaiting the dedicated news channel. Naturally also a standard web-browser could be used, but there must be large change in page design to make it suitable for a television screen. I looked for a while at the last.tv service on a Wii and that works pretty well. This service streams video clips from Youtube based on your last.fm profile. And this works on a television screen. One can imagine similar services for images (slide shows) and audio. A did not see a text-based service yet that works well on television screens (however think teletext here).

A problem with MicroContent is that one needs a way to select Items, whether they be movies, audio tracks, DVD's, streams, channels, games or whatever. Probably Items will be made accessible with very hierarchical folder/file browsers such as FrontRow or MediaCentral. The Wii by the way has an approach to this that is not very scalable.

One might see other file browser approaches with an increase in television resolution. With HD-ready (1280x760) and HD (1920x1080) resolution we have something that compares to computer screens, which allows much more detail even at larger viewing distances.

A television has never been seen as computer systems. Televisions only had analogue tuners incorporated or could be used as screens for DVD players or video recorders. In the future a television will become more like a computer, which is now added with add-ons such as a game consoles. These should be networked televisions that must be able to pull MicroContent from PC's in the home or from the Internet using wireless naturally. It should incorporate streaming and downloading MicroContent to the television. I have the impression that the consumer electronics companies do not make much progress here. Only consoles, such as Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox seem to open televisions to Internet. Or we have to wait for Microsoft and Apple to create interconnecting boxes. So there is still a hardware gap to fill.

Then we need an operating system for the TV, such as the Wii interface or FrontRow. This operating system must be intelligent enough to pull MicroContent from all kinds of places. And finally we need services, which can be RSS-feeds connected to the browser, specific hybrid apps or generic web-browser apps.

All in all this still a large spectrum to be filled in. Time for the television to open up and no longer be a closed garden.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application • service • type • audio • video
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Google Video Player

I just dowmloaded the Google Video Player for the Mac. It was offer on their video pages, so why not try it out. It is a very simple MicroContent Client, hardly worth discussing. So why yet another player? I guess it is only to support their DRM version. It gives at least a pretty transparent way to download Google video's. Normally I use Firefox with an extension to do this. Then I can use Democracy to vie these flv-formatted files. So yet another format to cope with. Unfortunately that did not work well to download feature length movies.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • type • video
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No enclosures?

I had a look at the feeds mentioned in Marc Canter's post. The feeds were deemed not to be valid in iTunes and Democracy. And it took me a while to figure out why. There were no enclosures in those feeds. I do not like that. In my opinion a Media feed should at least have RSS enclosures. Although an enclosure is nothing more than a link to a media file, it allows a client to download that file in a standard way. Otherwise Media RSS is nothing more than a fancy bookmark. In the Google video feeds there is an enclosure link and a media:content url. The latter can be used as a replacement for enclosures. But why invent something new?

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video
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Media RSS it is

Marc Canter has gathered the feedback on his post. And the conclusion is that many more Media RSS feeds are around. So it looks like that is the standard for now. The next question is whether there are any clients (applications or services) that actually can use the metadata. NetNewsWire does not. Democracy can read the media RSS feeds, as can iTunes. However I can not see whether they actually use the Media encoded information.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video
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Video feed reqs

Writing about video feeds I started to wonder what I would like to see in a feed. The most important thing for me is that I do not want to view feeds on the web, so it must be viewable in a Feed Client. And in my case that implies a local application, such as NetNewsWire (NNW), iTunes or Democracy. I use all three applications to view video. So which one is the best. And in addition there must be metadata present, which can be used by the user to judge the video and by clients to create extensive search possibilities.

NNW is not really a video client. Whether it is useful to view video's depends whether there is an embedded video in the feed, such as in the Google feed. In addition there is information the video title, the producer, video length, publishing date, a description. And there are links to the video for downloading, to the relevant web-page and to the feed-page. The video URL has a very hidden video type, so NNW does not recognise a video enclosure and the Download to iTunes button is left grey.

The iTunes video experience is very good. I only follow the AmandaAcrossAmerica video feed with this app. I like about this app that I can view the video's full screen. In the Items-pane some metadata is available. I can see the title, a description, the video length, a release date and the category. iTunes makes it easy to see which video's are unwatched, download video's, etc. There is also some cover art available. The metadata is not really used elsewehere in the app as far as I can see. It is impossible to access the feed URL and individual video URL's. Are they not available in the feed? In the newest version of iTunes one can no longer see the entire library. Apple decided to show only specific libraries, such as music, podcasts, tv-shows, etc. I do not like that they make that decision for me.

I use Democracy to follow ZeFrank and RocketBoom. The Items in the videocasts are downloaded automatically. And I can see which ones I have not viewed yet. In the Items-pane I can see the title, the description, the publishing date, the size in MB, a link to the page. The metadata is hardly used by the app itself. This application lacks some support for standard Mac-features, such as the ctrl and alt key. Also some standard Client features such as smart lists are missing. The good thing is that this app supports many video formats.

I guess that a video publisher should try to publish his content in various formats and with various metadata. And we hope that the best format/metadata combination will survive.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video
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Video feeds and markup missing

Marc Canter (unknowingly?) started to answer my question on Video Aggregators on 17 oktober. Basically his answer is that the feeds do not support (Yahoo!) MediaRSS, which makes aggregation difficult.

I had a look at Yahoo Video, but I am to able to find the feeds. And there is no autodiscovery. I guess I did not locate the right page yet. The RSS-feed can be found on some Google pages as the letters RSS. No autodiscovery support. Where is the feed in Technorati. They create a list of Top Internet Videos. But where is the feed?

I wonder whether any aggregators support these Video RSS feeds? The Google feed shows up nicely in NetNewsWire. And the metadata turns up in the Item description (title, video length, date, description) and I can watch the video in NNW as well. Just the way I want it. In Podtech you can find the feeds through a subscribe link, and then selecting the required format. No autodiscovery. No watching in NNW itself. Technorati's own video blog shows up nicely in NNW. I can watch the video in NNW s well.

The Technorati Top Internet Video List seems like aggregation. However I do not think that it is true aggregation as it looks at blog items that talk about video. So I guess that look for links to YouTube only(?) videos in those blog items and then do a smart aggregation.

In conclusion lets get first the right feeds in place. First have minimal metadata and then expand on that. We are not here yet.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video
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Video search?

I see video's popping up all over the place. Some are hosted by Youtube (or another), but many are hosted by other services. By now there are enough video's to warrant a good search service. But where is it? Who forgot to build such a thing? It is about time that video gets unlocked from the web macro-container and is MicroContent on its own.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • type • video
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Videoclip MicroContent

When analysing the TVTube application, I realised that we have a new Type of MicroContent here. This MicroContent Type helps to define VideoClip Items, such as can be found on Google Video, YouTube, etc.

TVTube defines this MicroContent Type as a title, a description, a thumbnail and the embed code. The embed code is where the interesting things happen. This code defines the content type (movie), the size of the movie (425x350), the URI to the movie (http://www.youtube.com/v/zyyCcjbrWOM), the application plugin that must be used to play the movie (application/x-shockwave-flash). I wonder whether all these elements have to be baked into the embed code or can be made more flexible.

See the example above where I mashed a videoclip Item into this Blog Item.

This MicroContent Type is reminiscent of a bookmark. Only some extra technical information on video has been added. And for mashing purposes some of this information will be needed (video size for instance), but for clipping into a decent videoplayer Client this should not be necessary. Just like a normal bookmark one should able to drag and drop a videoclip into a client, on the desktop or whatever.