[Data-modeling] [Developers] Modeling question
Kavitha Srinivas
ksrinivs at gmail.com
Tue Jan 8 02:58:33 UTC 2008
Is there a plan to connect the brand/product to a company? Maybe I'm
missing something in this example, but I didn't see it.
Kavitha
On Jan 7, 2008, at 7:42 PM, Alec Flett wrote:
> 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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>>>>
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