[uf-new] Microformat for Music Downloads

[Marian Steinbach]

2007/3/9, Andy Mabbett <andy at pigsonthewing.org.uk>:
> In message
> <f87c49a80703062344u531e93f3p1f952a470f883bea at mail.gmail.com>, Marian
> Steinbach <marian at sendung.de> writes
>
> >I am experimenting with the automatic
> >discovery of audio files, especially music MP3s, on web pages.
>
> Doesn't the "type" (MIME type):
>
>          <http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/>
>
> attribute, of the "A":
>
>      <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#adef-type-A>
>
> and "OBJECT":
>
>      <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html#adef-type-OBJECT>
>
> elements, provide for that?
>


Hi Andy!

You're right, the 'type' attribute can be used to declare that a
hyperlink points to a certain mime type, e.g. audio/mpeg. E.g.

<a href="/download.php?id=1234" type="audio/mpeg">...</a>

I absolutely agree that this should be used. But that only solves one
of several problems.

The microformat for music downloads should also help to identify the
most common metadata about that music file, apart from the media type.

I started this thread with the aim to gather and discuss requirements
from the people who care.

>From looking at many, many examples, it seems as pubulishers are most
frequently giving the following information (of course in an
unstructured format):

- Track title (i.e. song title) -- most frequent
- Artist name (i.e. singer, band or musisician) -- very frequent
- Album title -- less frequent

Evertyhing else that could be said about a track is much less
frequently told. That could be duration, file size, bitrate etc.,
recording date and place (especially for live recordings).

Here is a simple draft with artist and track title:

<div class="music-download">
<a href="pl.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"><span class="artist">The Shins</span> -
<span class="title">Phantom Limb</span></a>
</div>

Draft with album title:

<div class="music-download">
<a href="pl.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"><span class="artist">The Shins</span> -
<span class="title">Phantom Limb</span></a>
(from the album <em class="album">Wincing The Night Away</em>)
</div>

Any comments so far? (It'll get more complicated soon enough!)

Cheers,

Marian

-- 
http://musik.sendung.de/