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The origin of ' metadata '
Question : What is metadata?
Answer : Metadata, a term created by the fusion of an ancient Greek prefix
with a Latin word, has come to mean "information about information" when used
in technology and database contexts. The Greek meta means behind, hidden or
after, and refers to something in the background or not obviously visible, yet
still present. Data, the Latin term, is factual information used for
calculating, reasoning or measuring.
A vast amount of information (factual or otherwise) exists on the Internet,
in databases, libraries and other repositories. Weeding through all of it to
find what you're looking for can be maddening, but using metadata can help.
For example, many Web pages have "metatags" embedded in their underlying
code that help Internet search engines home in on keywords taken from the
page's content. For a Pennsylvania sports-themed site, a metatag could contain
keywords like "football," "Pittsburgh Steelers" or "Terrible Towels." A search
engine can scan the Web for these keywords in the page's metatag, and possibly
find results more quickly and accurately from the-billions of pages available
on-line.
You can also see metadata used in other everyday ways. Digital photos can
contain exposure information tucked inside the file. Songs encoded as digital
audio files with software like Windows Media Player or iTunes can embed text
like the artist, album and song title alongside the music data, which lets you
see what's playing when you look at the screen of your audio player.
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