[uf-discuss] Product Data Microformat

[Mike Dierken]

My guess is that each industry has defined their own schemas and XML
formats for their particular kind of products (and services).
I think its more of a social problem than a technical problem - most
companies aren't all that motivated in sharing data with folks they
aren't already doing business with (although it is suprising that
there isn't a 'one true product schema').
>From my experience at Amazon, I'm guessing that a single format that
encompasses a large set of product categories will be a very open
schema. Basically, product references (book title, UPC,
mft/part-number, etc.) and attributes for product description. (When
you get into the /selling/ of products, there are fewer choices and
more chance of a schemas being useful - but that's for another
discussion thread.) For products, the biggest challenge is the
determining whether the names used by different parties have the same
meaning or only sort of similar meanings.

I did a quick search on Google and nothing stunning showed up on the
first few pages - which means we have to do it ourselves.

How about commerce.net host a "product attribute metadata" database
that all industries can use to find and 'register' properties of their
products? All with the requisite XML based RESTful API of course.

This really isn't "microformat" oriented, but a clearing house for
names of attributes used to describe physical products - the Dublin
Core of products (you know, there /has/ to be some sort of existing
repository for this stuff).

On 3/5/06, David Beach <beach at itsbeach.com> wrote:
>
> I think XML could be sufficient. But if it is, then why hasn't any of this
> been done?
>
> The reason why I believe (with my limited knowledge) microformats could be
> useful is I know how difficult it is to find and define products right now.
> Working in the product search business, we toil everyday with feeds and
> crawls. Nomalizing them is a difficult task. Manufacturers and merchants do
> not provide upc codes. And not every product has one. The descriptors that I
> see that we could benefit from include product name, model number, image,
> price, description, specs, availability, rebate, category, url, merchant
> name, manufacturer, upc if available, and possibly accessories. If this
> common data was wrapped in a standard microformat, then it would make the
> distribution of the product that much easier. I think that it would also
> help even the playing field a bit for smaller manufacturers and merchants.
> Essentially the better the product is defined the easier it is for search
> engines to find it and index it.
>
> I'm going to ETech this week. If any of you all are going to be there, it
> would be interesting to meet up and discuss.
>
> On Mar 5, 2006, at 12:00 PM,
> microformats-discuss-request at microformats.org wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Message: 2
>
> Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 21:10:25 -0800
>
> From: "Mike Dierken" <dierken at gmail.com>
>
> Subject: Re: [uf-discuss] Product Data Microformat
>
> To: "Microformats Discuss"
> <microformats-discuss at microformats.org>
>
> Message-ID:
>
> <7cd8e0930603042110g34643dc9i1d20935fa86926b6 at mail.gmail.com>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>
>
>
>
> If the goal is to automate distributing production information, then
>
> XML is sufficient. I thought a 'microformat' was meant to be an
>
> overlay on narrative text - like a highlighter with a color dedicated
>
> to 'product info'. I could be wrong - who knows the purpose of
>
> microformats as compared to simply using XML?
>
> There are several book related formats - UIEE for example (but that
>
> isn't XML) [1] - and there is UBL for 'business documents' [2] but I
>
> don't know if they have a 'product' format.
>
>
>
>
> [1]
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/1161336/103-3996345-0333429
>
> [2]
> http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ubl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> About the need for a UPI: While it's true that it's important to identify a
>
> product uniquely, once you've specified the part number and/or the
>
> description as well as the manufacturer's name you've uniquely ID'd the
>
> part, since it's rare that a manufacturer duplicates its own part names or
>
> numbers.
>
> Well, not everything has a manufacturer, the manufacturer's name isn't
>
> necessarily unique, manufacturers do actually re-use and have
>
> duplicate part numbers. And the same product can have a UPC, EAN,
>
> manufacturer and part number - anyone could use any of these to
>
> reference the product. Then you get into issues of similarity, like
>
> after-market manufacturers of 'compatible' or 'equivalent' products -
>
> wouldn't it be nice to know those relationships?
>
>
>
>
> Anyway, something that mostly works is infinitely better than not
>
> having a system at all.
>
>
>
>
>
> David Beach
> beach at itsbeach.com
> http://www.itsbeach.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discuss at microformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
>
>
>