<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">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:<div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><div><a href="http://www.freebase.com/view/schema/user/robert/mobile_phones/product">http://www.freebase.com/view/schema/user/robert/mobile_phones/product</a></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>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.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>My rule of thumb is if a type is very general, then it should be simple and have few properties. </div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>My mobile phone type includes the product type:</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><div><a href="http://www.freebase.com/view/schema/user/robert/mobile_phones/mobile_phone">http://www.freebase.com/view/schema/user/robert/mobile_phones/mobile_phone</a></div></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>R</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><div>On Jan 6, 2008, at 9:45 PM, Ed Laurent wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">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. <br><br>-Ed<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 7, 2008 12:19 AM, Shawn Simister <<a href="mailto:narphorium@gmail.com">narphorium@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> 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.<br> <br> Shawn<br> <br> Ed Laurent wrote: <blockquote type="cite"><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">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. <br> <br> -Ed<br> <br> P.S. This conversation is probably more relevant to the Data Modeling list so I'm cc'ing it. <br> <br> <br> <div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 6, 2008 10:05 PM, Daniel E. Renfer <<a href="mailto:duck@kronkltd.net" target="_blank"> duck@kronkltd.net</a>> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">It would probably make sense to have some sort of "products producer" <br> co-type. The producers would have a "products produced" link to the<br> "producer" field of the corresponding "product" type.<br> <br> Not every company produces products, and there are some products that <br> are produced by groups other than companies.<br> <br> Other than that, it sounds like great information to track.<br> <div> <div><br> Kavitha Srinivas wrote:<br> > For companies, is there any interest in linking companies to their <br> > major products (e.g., Pfizer to its key pharma products) as listed in<br> > Wikipedia? I don't mind adding it, but there is no appropriate slot<br> > to add it.<br> > Key products seems to be important information for a company. <br> > Thanks!<br> > Kavitha<br> > _______________________________________________<br> > Developers mailing list<br> > <a href="mailto:Developers@freebase.com" target="_blank">Developers@freebase.com</a><br> > <a href="http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/developers" target="_blank"> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/developers</a><br> <br> </div> </div> <br> _______________________________________________<br> Developers mailing list<br> <a href="mailto:Developers@freebase.com" target="_blank">Developers@freebase.com </a><br> <a href="http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/developers" target="_blank">http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/developers</a><br> <br> </blockquote> </div> <br> </div></div><pre><hr size="4" width="90%">_______________________________________________
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