There are a few areas where metadata is particularly relevant, and they are all related to adding context and enabling technology to make connections between different subjects. For example, digital smartphone photos of landmarks can be automatically sorted based on geotags in the image metadata. Google parses emails from Amazon to directly link to the package tracking system which shows the status of your order. And soon, metadata from your various devices, purchases, and interactions may decide which products are featured when you visit an online shopping portal.
This highly interconnected web of context and depth is where the future is headed: that's what is hiding behind the semantic web, the internet of things, and big data. It's about making technology able to connect the dots autonomously. That's what is often termed 'smart' in today's marketing buzzword bingo.
But that's not really smart. What is smart is being able to draw conclusions from all of those connected contexts – for example, sentiment analysis to determine a persons mood, or taking things a step further, predicting which employees are most likely to resign in the next year.
That's where we're headed: a world where technology is able to meaningful draw conclusions about our digital lives, based on the mountains of metadata buried in every interaction.
/via +Knut Linke
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+Sophie Wrobel I think analyzing metadata is great,but if personalized data gets in hands of let's say mafia than you are in big trouble. Technology is a great thing but human being is always the weakest link.
+David Andrews The data has pretty much always been there, although Moore's Law has made the cost of deploying sensors so much cheaper each year, so I guess that bit has been growing (but really not that much).
Really all that has changed is that as per Moore's Law, the cost of storing & analyzing the data has been diminishing as an inverse exponential. So, what has been cost-effective to actually do has changed.
+David Andrews Exactly! 🙂 Like +Christopher Smith points out, metadata has been around for quite some time. Only, we rarely stop to think about how much metadata is circulating – and what the implications of the extensive information we circulate are.
+Juliusz Switlik Most certainly, there are potential dangers, and these are what +David Oliver suggests by maturity. It has always been a game of give and take: everybody wants the benefits of metadata; I've already given a few examples of how metadata is used today. I do think that this field will continue to grow and we will see many wonderful benefits as a result. But people also expect that their privacies are respected, and updating policies and designs that incorporate this expectation is what we need to reach a more mature world where metadata can be effectively used and accepted.
Security actually is the smallest concern, in my opinion – of course security is important, and there are still many open research questions in the area of security in the online environment and in particular with the vast arrays of devices that are currently deployed, but the parameters under which security must be guaranteed are relatively well-defined when compared to the discussions and circumstances around when privacy should be guaranteed. Or did you mean something else from a security point of view?
The point I get is the amount of detailed information associated and transmitted far exceeds what I was aware of .
Newsflash: metadata has already been around and has always been terribly useful…
important to read
Truly an iceberg. Wonderful but can be dangerous if not taken into consideration from security point of view:-)
Thank you for a sober assessment of the the great promise that meta. Data holds for a better future. So much of what is wonderful and positive in the discovery and implementation of this technology has been been drowned out by the hysteria of privacy concerns. As we mature in our understanding so to will our attitudes.
Sincerely David