Wedia : What is metadata? What role does it play in DAM?

What are the different types of metadata?

For images (the most common content in DAM), there are three main types of metadata:

EXIF

Exchangeable image file format

This format provides technical information on image or sound files recorded by digital camera (aperture, shutter speed).

IPTCor IIM

International Press Telecommunications Council - Information Interchange Model

This provides information on the author of an image (contact details, etc.).

XMP

Extensible Metadata Platform

This is the most recent metadata standard, it replaces IPTC and allows a wide variety of information to be stored because this XML format is extensible.

Metadata can be grouped into four main categories

Descriptive metadata:

This data is used to describe and identify marketing content, whether in an operating system or on a website. The metadata is used to assign unique identifiers, physical characteristics (type of media, size, general condition) and bibliographic information (title, author, creator, language, keywords).

TheDublin Core, for example, is a simple and generic metadata schema. It was initially based on 15 core properties for resource description, including formal (title, creator, publisher), intellectual (subject, description, language, etc.) and those relating to intellectual property. It has since been enriched with additional elements: relationships (isPartOf, isVersionOf, isFormatOf, etc.), and additional repositories including a list of resource types used to more accurately characterize the syntax (DC: type).

Structural metadata:

This facilitates the navigation and presentation of digital media by providing information on the internal structure of resources. It describes the relationships between components (e.g. file A is the jpeg format of archive file B) in compound objects. It can be defined as the tags that structure content, allowing users to find out the classification and structural level of said content (e.g. photograph B was inserted into manuscript A).

Administrative metadata:

This is the information that facilitates the short and long-term management and processing of content. It includes technical data on creation and quality control, rights management, access control and user requirements. This rights management can be personalized according to the Group's requirements (limited to a period of time, geographic location, etc), making it possible to find information such as publication date, resolution, color space, file format, owner, copyright date, and more.

Generated metadata:

Metadata can also be created automatically by the capture device (e.g. mobile phone, digital camera, video camera) or editing software (e.g. Photoshop). For example, a camera can record information such as geographic coordinates or the date the photo was taken.

Machine learning (AI) is a method by which programs learn from experience, using structured data sets. The more structured and numerous the data, the more it learns and the more accurate the results. A DAM solution can therefore generate the tags of a video or photothanks to its artificial intelligence service.

Machine learning is not a substitute for data analysts or other types of user. But it does increase productivity and enable a better use of the time for the people in charge of managing the company's marketing and communication content.

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The proper management of metadata is key to improving your production costs, as well as streamlining creative collaboration and better distributing marketing content.

The establishment of aDAM solution that automatically enriches your marketing contentsaves time for marketing teams who know they can trust the content presented.

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