[Data-modeling] Capitalism (was Consumer product type)

[Eric Hanson]

There is a great potential here for Freebase to become a powerful guide 
for consumers to make more educated decisions about what they buy and 
where they buy it, both locally and online.  If Freebase can live up to 
the grandeur of its vision (and I think it can), this type, and other 
types in this domain, could define the structure of the future of 
consumer information and capitalism.

I'm most excited about the idea of online and brick-and-mortar retailers 
uploading their inventories cross-referenced with topics in Freebase's 
product type.  It could turn into a vast and incredibly useful tool for 
empowering consumers to make better purchasing decisions, supporting 
local retailers, price hunting, supporting companies and products who 
are in line with their values, and much more.  Imagine it being as easy 
to search the inventories of local retailers as it is to search online 
retailers (ala Froogle).

We should spend more time here, and make sure we're getting it right. 
I'd like to see this domain flushed out more completely to make sure all 
the pieces fit together.

The idea of including product purchase locations is great, but there 
should be a layer of indirection here, to include what store is selling 
it, how much it costs, how many are in stock, etc.  This should be 
possible for both online and brick-and-mortar retailers.

I've created types for Retail Inventory Item and Online Inventory Item, 
which have properties for Seller, Price and for Online inventory item, a 
purchase link, which would go to the specific product's page on a website.

http://freebase.com/view/user/erichanson/default_domain/online_inventory_item
http://freebase.com/view/user/erichanson/default_domain/retail_inventory_item

I had to invent the Price type, which seemed surprising -- maybe I'm 
missing something.  Just included a float for ammount and a Currency.

http://freebase.com/view/user/erichanson/default_domain/price

Eric

Robert Cook wrote:
> If you gather information on products, people would like to know where 
> to purchase it.  These could be added to a more general link type (such 
> as the one on /common/topic) but it seemed to have more utility as a 
> more specific property.
> 
> Even more importantly, this points to how users of freebase could more 
> easily make money from their applications. 
> 
> R
> 
> On Jan 30, 2008, at 5:09 PM, Shawn Simister wrote:
> 
>> The new type looks good to me but I'm curious what the intended use 
>> case for the purchase_links property is?
>>
>> Shawn
>>
>> Jeff Prucher wrote:
>>> If there are no more comments on this type, I'll promote it to the business
>>> domain at the end of the week.
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>>   
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com 
>>>> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of 
>>>> Kavitha Srinivas
>>>> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 12:11 PM
>>>> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
>>>> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Consumer product type (was 
>>>> Modeling question)
>>>>
>>>> Yes, then that makes sense.
>>>> Kavitha
>>>> On Jan 28, 2008, at 1:49 PM, Jeff Prucher wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>> Yes, that's exactly what we were thinking.
>>>>>
>>>>> Jeff
>>>>>
>>>>>       
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
>>>>>> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Kavitha 
>>>>>> Srinivas
>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 6:10 PM
>>>>>> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Consumer product type (was Modeling 
>>>>>> question)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This looks great.  Just to clarify your point about not wanting to 
>>>>>> encode an association with a brand or company type, do you 
>>>>>>         
>>>> mean that 
>>>>     
>>>>>> there might be a more specific link between a company and 
>>>>>>         
>>>> a product, 
>>>>     
>>>>>> say Apple Inc. has ComputerModels MacBookPro, but that the 
>>>>>>         
>>>> MacBookPro 
>>>>     
>>>>>> will be typed additionally as a consumer_product?
>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>> Kavitha
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 24, 2008, at 4:52 PM, Jeff Prucher wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>         
>>>>>>> Following up on a recent discussion on the data-modelling and 
>>>>>>> developers lists (threads begin here:
>>>>>>> http://lists.freebase.com/pipermail/developers/2008-January/
>>>>>>> 001156.html
>>>>>>> and here:
>>>>>>> http://lists.freebase.com/pipermail/data-modeling/2008-January/
>>>>>>> 000250.html),
>>>>>>> we're proposing a new type to be used for consumer 
>>>>>>>           
>>>> products.  This 
>>>>     
>>>>>>> type is a fairly simple type, with only three properties,
>>>>>>>           
>>>>>> all of which
>>>>>>         
>>>>>>> expect the type
>>>>>>> "webpage": "official website", "external reviews", and "purchase 
>>>>>>> links". The type would most likely be used as an included type on 
>>>>>>> types that are designed for more specific products, and 
>>>>>>>           
>>>> can be used 
>>>>     
>>>>>>> for everything from board games, to computer software, to digital 
>>>>>>> cameras (and more -- examples in the earlier discussion included 
>>>>>>> pharmaceuticals, books, and cars).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We decided against trying to encode an association with a brand, 
>>>>>>> manufacturer, or other company type since the 
>>>>>>>           
>>>> relationships between 
>>>>     
>>>>>>> products, brands, and companies can vary greatly between 
>>>>>>>           
>>>> different 
>>>>     
>>>>>>> types of products, and we want to enable communities and interest 
>>>>>>> groups to maintain a more precise structure.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The type is published in my private domain, with some
>>>>>>>           
>>>>>> examples of how
>>>>>>         
>>>>>>> it might be used:
>>>>>>> http://www.freebase.com/view/schema/user/jeff/default_domain/
>>>>>>> consumer_produc
>>>>>>> t
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Comments welcome.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Jeff Prucher
>>>>>>> Type Librarian & Ontologist
>>>>>>> Metaweb Technologies, Inc.
>>>>>>>
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