I wanted to start off this proposal with a pretty picture - to inspire people. This is a mockup of a tool environment which would take advantage of the types of standards I'm proposing. But before I propose any other open standards, I wanted to start off clarifying my 'Free Media Management' proposal I floated last week. I had to change the name from "Open Media Management" to "Free" - as Avid has a standard called OMM. Ooops.
I've been going over the idea with lots of folks all week, while writing the fuller Open Standards Arcitecture proposal. As I explained the idea - over and over again - each person who listened to it heard a different thing, based upon their industry, constituency group or level of technical prowess.
I realized that in fact, what we're trying to create is a 'mesh' of standards that unite on-line media, and that this mesh was made up of at least three different kinds of technology - merged together into one architecture. These different modules will all share the same media object model and enable a standard way to address, index and manipulate media on-line.
I - Existing Media storage and tools companies already have their own internal media management systems. But each company's system is it's own separate island - hoping to lock customers and end-users into their format. But as competition increases and media becomes more and more ubiquitous (and the conversations continue), we believe that companys will want a way to 'unite' or aggregate media from multiple sources.
Look at the current situations with music jukeboxes - for instance. Right now each legal downloading solution deploys a different scenario for locking, controlling or limiting access to the music. End-users are required to access their music through separate jukeboxes, because of these uncompatible systems. It's as if you had a separate CD player for music you bought at Tower Records, versus another player for CD's from Sam Goodey!
So module #1 would be some sort of 'proxying' system or redirector, which means that end-users would be able to access any media - anywhere - regardless of where it's stored or under who's rules. Within the realm of 'fair use' - of course! This proxying would also enable Ofoto albums to include images from Yahoo Photos or Xdrive or iLife could aggregate videos from Microsoft Media 9 libraries. Any kind of media tool and/or storage service could utilize this proxying system. It would be stored on public servers and hosted by sponsors.
II - Blogging and Journaling tools do not have media management right now. They treat an image as another HTML tag, which just happens to end with .gif, .jpg, .avi, .mp3, etc. But increasingly bloggers are trying to plug in audioblogging or moblogging posts, or at least keep track of all the images they've included in their posts. Media integration is going to be cruicial for the future of blogging.
If you think of blogging as just one form of personal publishing, then your logic would flow and say: "gee blogging tools really need to deal with media (video, audio, photos) as special 'objects'. We can then reuse our media in a wide range of 'micro-content' applications and services."
So module #2 is really an object model, which is implemented in a storage system, and coupled to the proxying service, and interchangeable media standards (RSS extensions) and compatible with built-in content libraries of usable media. This code could be baked into blogging tools (or be offered as add-on products.)
III - New kinds of tools, devices and interactive experiences vendors will find a goldmine combining media, communications and personal publishing. By having a standard media management system to leverage off of and build on top of, software developers can start to build interactive experiences which can directly attach to and support game machines, cell phones, TV sets, stereos, PVRs and all sorts of handheld devices.
So module #3 is all the code necessary for supporting and synchronzing with devices, working within a multimedia Home LAN and enabling all sort of cool, new interactive experiences to blossom.
This all is crucial for the foundation for next generation 'digital lifestyle' products. Standard media management stuff - is real important.
Imagine what Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive would do with such a standard? Or the Creative Commons?
