Fourth method: Experimental software
Part of our research is to build an experimental piece of software. We are still exploring the possibilities. However, we have made two decisions: Firstly, we aim to develop this application not alone, but in cooperation with partners. Secondly we want to build an interface and a metadata mangement system for audiovisual content. It should a.) enable rich and new forms of input of metadata, b.) display the metadata in a way that metadata becomes part of its content, and c.) react to the specific requirements of the moving image, and especially long blocks of filmed public talks.
One idea would be an interface that allows users to comment directly on the moving image, similar to the interface of Nico Nico Douga. We expect that such a possibility to comment directly onto a film of a talk of, say, Katherine Hayles, could produce interesting effects. Users could comment Katherine Hayles talk, but also interact with each other: Again all this against the backdrop of the timeline of Katherine Hayles talking.
A second idea is time-based tagging: A tag for a segment of a video. Such tags are tricky: They work differently to comments. A comment makes sense as something that is consumed after the particular piece of video, which originally inspired the comment. A tag would only make sense, if the tag is placed before the moment in the video: If someone clicks on the tag ‘ orange’, he or she will want to see the start of the sequence of the film of the orange, and not its end. But the retrospective identification of the start of a sequence could make the process of tagging potentially too hazardous for the tagging user. How can we solve this problem? Until now this is still an open question.
Thirdly, we would like to explore here the idea of ‘ fuzzy tags’ (the description of a segment of a film as ‘ 70% round’ or ‘90% boring’). We also aim to explore ideas about an emotive ontology for video of intellectual content. If we are successful, we might be able to create an interface that would allow a hybrid of surfing and zapping, where users jump between different videos at different moments.