Using Metadata Effectively in OS X

http://theappleblog.com/2007/02/01/using-metadata-effectively-in-os-x/

When Tiger launched in 2005 it brought with it Spotlight for unparalleled searching capabilities. A large factor in this amazing new tech was the ability of the operating system to leverage metadata in files. What is metadata? It’s information about information…Ok, a better explanation: Metadata is the term used for details about a file. For instance, who created the file, when, how large is the file size, and so on.

But the best part came with the addition of Spotlight Comments. Accessible through the Get Info screen of any file on OS X, the Spotlight Comments field gives the user free-reign for creating customized metadata (referred to as ‘tags’ from here on out in this article). Think about tagging in the mainstream sense. Just about everyone has seen it in action with the advent of Web 2.0. Del.icio.us uses it for ‘categorizing’ bookmarks, flickr allows you to tag your images, and many blogs provide tag clouds of the many blog post categories offered within their pages. So we translate that thinking to our files and the way we organize them on our hard drive.