I finally understand.
Metadata is a term I’ve heard thrown around a lot by some friends and coworkers, but never completely understood until now.
I’m an avid user of social media, especially Twitter and Facebook. Some people can say my obsession is a disappointing quality of my character, but I love it for a very specific reason. Social media is almost like a science that can conclude more about us than what is on our profiles. A scary thought in terms of privatization, but fascinating nonetheless.
Like many other social media outlets, Twitter utilizes many aspects of metadata that can record your location, what language you speak, interests, and learn a great deal about you just by monitoring your behavior on social.
I knew about how much information about me was being recorded, but I never knew what it was called or where it was going. According to Neal Ungerleider’s Fast Company article, Twitter can determine what language you speak based on messaging metadata, meaning the language in which you sent messages was recorded. This information can then use geographic data from your location of sent tweets to determine where you live, essentially.
Another interesting aspect of metadata that I thought of while reading the article, “What is Metadata?” are hashtags. The hashtag is its own form of metadata that groups related things to one another in an incredibly vast, and almost daunting un-navigable digital space. It has actually been used in the metadata world for quite some time to categorize. But in the world of social media, has only really become commonly used when social media outlets like Twitter and Vine emerged. The use of hashtags is where metadata shines. By using hashtags in regards to certain topics, people can connect with those who share in similar interests.
The world of Twitter and even social media in general utilize metadata and the form of metadata in HTML as its asset. It creates a digital space for users from all around the world to connect and make it easier to connect in conversation through hashtags or “suggestions to follow” from the web application itself. By using data to collect more information about you, Twitter is enhancing a user’s experience and, in many ways, positively enhancing the way we use metadata in our every day lives. Especially with the millennial generation’s use of it, it seems to be working.
“These Amazing Twitter Metadata Visualizations Will Blow Your Mind.” Neal Ungerleider. Fast Company. 2013. http://www.fastcompany.com/3013208/these-amazing-twitter-metadata-visualizations-will-blow-your-mind
National Information Standards Organization, “What is Metadata?” (Bethesda, MD: NISO Press, 2004)