geographical metadata and cambridge cats

A year and a half ago, I wrote a Webmonkey article asking where metadata might be headed next. What hidden information should we add to web pages to make them more searchable? For example, G.P.S. coordinates (longitude & latitude) would be an obvious boon for smartphone / mobile surfers - imagine standing on any street corner, and searching for all restaurants within walking distance.

The question remains unresolved, but it’s increasingly visible. Notable in the last few weeks were Jeff Bezos’ talk at the Web 2.0 conference, along with this ‘Metadata for the Masses’ essay over at Adaptive Path. And, as anybody with a few thousand digi-cam snapshots knows, the metadata issue applies just as well to individual photos as it does to web pages.

I like the small ideas, though, always have. That’s why I was a fan of super-simple GeoURL; ‘twas a great trend, at least until the site went kaput. Finally, though, I’ve found a replacement: A2B.cc - another location-based search engine which parses a variety of geographical markup, including old GeoURL tags.

On an entirely different note, we just learned our new row house came with a one-way cat door. Kitty-cats can come in, but can’t leave. And that explains why, yesterday, upon arriving home after a long afternoon stroll through Trinity and St. John’s, a heretofore unknown black-and-white tabby was lounging on our sofa. Meow!