[Data-modeling] [Developers] Modeling question
Alec Flett
alecf at metaweb.com
Tue Jan 8 00:42:41 UTC 2008
Robert Cook wrote:
> I've taken a couple stabs at modeling the abstract product type and
> eventually concluded that it should be very simple. My latest straw
> man is in my "mobile phones" domain:
>
I really like that this started in Mobile Phones.
At the first (and only?) US-based freebase usergroup, Jamie presented a
really important process for modeling apparently abstract ideas. The
general idea is to start very specific, and make things more general by
"borrowing" properties.. so in the case of coke, you start by creating a
"Beverage Manufacturer" and a "Beverage" and setting up the single
bidirectional relationship between them. Over in another domain, someone
may have set up "Mobile Phone Manufacturer" and "Mobile Phone".
Over time, these two mostly-unrelated domains may converge ever so
slightly by incrementally working their way towards a general "product"
model which may include UPC, physical dimensions and such... or maybe
they don't converge because the Beverage domain has deemed that a
beverage company's product is a thing like "Coke" and "Diet Code" (which
doesn't even have physical dimensions) and a "Beverage SKU" is a more
specific thing like "2 liter Diet Coke, plastic bottle"
but you can imagine how this evolution could happen: the "portable media
player" domain notices similarities between it and mobile phones, and
the "handheld device" domain is created with some of the shared
generalities between them. The Audiophile, computer, and handheld device
domain notice they have similarties and join together to create the even
more abstract Consumer Electronics, again pulling up a tiny fraction of
whats shared between mobile phones, iPods, stereos, and computers.
The point is that these domains don't have to be completely modeled from
the top-down. They can start small, and grow more abstract only as
needed. I mean ultimately I'm not sure there is much value in a real top
level "product" domain - I mean what is it's purpose? So that I can say
"Give me all products weighing less than 1lb that are longer than 10 feet"?
the problem with high-level abstract domains is that it becomes harder
for enthusiasts in individual areas to adapt their domain into this
abstract domain. I mean in the beverage domain, the soda enthusiasts
decide that a "product" is "Coke" but the mobile phone domain decides
that a product is the "US-english version of the Nokia N770, release
2B2007.4" - you have this disjoint between uses of the same domain,
making queries within that abstract domain useless.
This goes on - "brand" is only one example of where shared terms really
break down when you try to apply them globally. The concept of a
"brands" and "products" really mean different things to different
people.. the "brand" NBC is a TV channel owned by NBC-Universal
productions, itself a brand, owned by the GE corporation with it's own
brand, GE. From the TV channel's perspective, the show "Friends" is/was
a product, as is the Season 4 DVD boxed set of that same show. But what
about Friends-branded merchandise produced by some sweatshop in china?
Who owns that product?
I guess what I'm saying is - it makes a lot of sense to me to start
specific and work up, property by property, to more general uses.. .when
applicable.
Alec
> http://www.freebase.com/view/schema/user/robert/mobile_phones/product
>
> The idea here is that products have a brand (as opposed to a
> manufacturer or producer) and different kinds of web resources such as
> support webpages and online reviews. Obviously, this is intended for
> a tangible product and not a service, which I think could be handled
> with the "Product service"/"Service brand" pairing.
>
> My rule of thumb is if a type is very general, then it should be
> simple and have few properties.
>
> My mobile phone type includes the product type:
>
> http://www.freebase.com/view/schema/user/robert/mobile_phones/mobile_phone
>
> R
>
> On Jan 6, 2008, at 9:45 PM, 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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