[uf-new] Microformat for Music Downloads

[Scott Reynen]

On Apr 4, 2007, at 1:27 PM, Manu Sporny wrote:

> Scott Reynen wrote:
>> I think Martin was talking about this problem:
>> http://microformats.org/wiki/music-examples#The_Problem
>>
>> Which is much simpler than the media info problem:
>> http://microformats.org/wiki/media-info-brainstorming#The_Problem
>
> I'm probably being dense. The problem description on music-examples
> seems like a subset of the problem description in media-info. Am I
> misunderstanding the problem description on either page?
>
> Can anybody help clarify the difference between the two?

This is how I see the distinction: Music downloads is only the  
information necessary to know whether or not a download is desired.   
Media info is general information about media, which may be used to  
identify where the same media is being referenced in multiple places,  
and retrieve addition information about that media.  Most of music  
downloads is a subset of media info (and should remain a subset, as  
smaller problems are easier to solve).  But the actual download URL  
doesn't appear to be necessary in media info, whereas it is the most  
important property of music downloads.

>> hAtom is not only for feeds; it's for "practically any other place  
>> Atom
>> may be used," and feeds are only the most prominent example of that.
>> hAtom contains a title, description, and item for download, which is
>> very close to what's needed for music downloads.
>
> Agreed, but I didn't think that it was the sole purpose for the
> music-examples problem description. Again, am I misunderstanding the
> problem description for music-examples? I've spoken with Dean  
> Hudson at
> SubPop (one of the authors of the music-examples page) and my
> understanding of what he was shooting for didn't include anything  
> in the
> hAtom/hReview ballpark. It was more complicated. It seemed to me that
> music-examples problem description was a subset of media-info... I can
> talk to him again... perhaps Rod Begbie could clarify the difference
> between the two as well?

Let's just make sure we're not revising the problem to fit a solution.

>> Many of the sites you surveyed don't have audio downloads  
>> available, so
>> while they may be relevant to the media-info work, they're outside  
>> the
>> scope of music downloads.
>
> Are we differentiating a sample from a download? If so, what makes  
> that
> differentiation?

I'm not making that differntiation.  There are plenty of examples in  
your media-info list, e.g. MusicBrainz, which contain no links to  
audio of any sort, only descriptions of audio.

> If we were to take all of the results from music and video and analyze
> them together the resulting media-info microformat would look  
> different
> than one where we created a music-media-info microformat and a
> video-media-info microformat. It seems like there might be evidence  
> for
> a separate music-media-info and a video-media-info microformat. I'm
> assuming the community doesn't want to do something like that,  
> correct?

Breaking down larger problems into smaller problems is part of the  
microformats process.  We may not want to do that, as it would sure  
be nice to have one huge format to describe everything.  Nonetheless,  
we should always start with smaller problems where we can.  Still, I  
think there's a difference between music metadata and music  
downloads.  If we're no longer focusing on solving the music  
downloads problem (i.e. how do I know what I'm downloading?), we  
should change the subject of this thread to reflect that.

--
Scott Reynen
MakeDataMakeSense.com