[Data-modeling] [Developers] Modeling question

Ed Laurent spatial.db at gmail.com
Mon Jan 7 07:33:02 UTC 2008 

Product brand is a pretty elegant solution. However, I'm having a little
trouble conceptualizing how to use the type for a product such as a cell
phone that may be produced by one company but sold and marketed by multiple
middle men under the umbrellas of different brands.

-Ed

On Jan 7, 2008 2:24 AM, Robert Cook <robert at metaweb.com> wrote:

> Topic granularity for products is a very interesting topic.  People
> would like to think of the topics "Coke", "Diet Coke", "Diet Coke 1
> liter bottle" all as type "product" in different circumstances.  This
> could be handled by a "phylogeny" containment pattern, where the
> product type pointed to more specific versions of the product, just as
> the "location" type points to other contained locations.
>
> I like the "edible product" idea, although I suspect there might be a
> more elegant name ;-)  The "beer" type could benefit from your
> suggested properties:
>
> http://www.freebase.com/view/schema/food/beer
>
> Also, ASINs, Netflix IDs, ISBNs and UPC codes are exactly the kind of
> "foreign keys" we would like to get into Freebase.  If anybody has
> access to such keys, we will help get them loaded.
>
> R
>
> On Jan 6, 2008, at 11:04 PM, Daniel E. Renfer wrote:
>
> > I know this adds another layer to the data, but you might want to go
> > even further and break it down to the types or brands of a product
> > and the instances or editions of that brand.
> >
> > For instance:
> >
> > <The Coca-Cola Bottling Corporation> produces <Coca-Cola>
> > <Coca-Cola> has an edition <Coca-Cola 20 oz. Bottle>
> > <Coca-Cola> has an edition <Coca-Cola 2 ltr. Bottle>
> >
> > <The Coca-Cola Bottling Corporation> produces <Diet Coke>
> >
> > You could then break it down to regional variance in ingredients,
> > weight, nutritional value, (although this would be a property of the
> > co-type, Edible Products) etc.
> >
> > I don't know how this would fly for most people, but what about a
> > property to record the ASIN (The key in Amazon's database) of the
> > item as well.
> >
> > Ed Laurent wrote:
> >> I guess it's growing on me and Shawn's definition helps quite a bit
> >> except I would replace "organization" with "person, company, or
> >> other organization". My concern is that the product <-> producer
> >> concepts are so general that they should be well thought out and
> >> modeled as generally as possible so that they support all relevant
> >> co-types now and in the future. For example, are UPC, weight/
> >> volume, and cost universal properties of a product? Coca-cola for
> >> example has different combinations of ingredients depending on
> >> where it is sold. Similarly, my motorcycle model has a different
> >> gear ratio when sold in Japan compared to the U.S. Maybe these
> >> versions have different UPCs but their differences in weight/volume
> >> are insignificant and you might be able to sell each version for
> >> the same price. I don't know how many topics in Freebase can/will
> >> be considered products but it's probably a bunch. Any problems
> >> later on could have big implications.
> >> -Ed
> >> On Jan 7, 2008 12:19 AM, Shawn Simister <narphorium at gmail.com <mailto:
> narphorium at gmail.com
> >> >> wrote:
> >>    I would define a Product as a tangible object which is sold by an
> >>    organization under a specific brand name. Therefore corn or people
> >>    are not products but Corn Flakes and People Magazine are. I know
> >>    that there are more general definitions of products, but I think
> >>    they could be accommodated by additional types like Commercial
> >>    Service, Commodity etc.
> >>    Shawn
> >>    Ed Laurent wrote:
> >>>    The "Products producer" type with a "Products produced" property
> >>>    sounds pretty good to me. The "Product" type a little less so.
> >>>    Would every tangible topic (including people) need to be typed as
> >>>    a product? What defines a product that separates it from other
> >>>    tangible topics? I agree that this kind of type could be very
> >>>    useful and there should be reciprocation between product and
> >>>    producer but I'm not excited about this approach to doing it.
> >>>
> >>>    -Ed
> >>>
> >>>    P.S. This conversation is probably more relevant to the Data
> >>>    Modeling list so I'm cc'ing it.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    On Jan 6, 2008 10:05 PM, Daniel E. Renfer < duck at kronkltd.net
> >>>    <mailto:duck at kronkltd.net>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>        It would probably make sense to have some sort of "products
> >>>        producer"
> >>>        co-type. The producers would have a "products produced" link
> >>>        to the
> >>>        "producer" field of the corresponding "product" type.
> >>>
> >>>        Not every company produces products, and there are some
> >>>        products that
> >>>        are produced by groups other than companies.
> >>>
> >>>        Other than that, it sounds like great information to track.
> >>>
> >>>        Kavitha Srinivas wrote:
> >>>        > For companies, is there any interest in linking companies
> >>> to
> >>>        their
> >>>        > major products (e.g., Pfizer to its key pharma products) as
> >>>        listed in
> >>>        > Wikipedia?  I don't mind adding it, but there is no
> >>>        appropriate slot
> >>>        > to add it.
> >>>        > Key products seems to be important information for a
> >>> company.
> >>>        > Thanks!
> >>>        > Kavitha
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