PubForge Blog

Cross-posted from Publist

I thought I would throw this bit of information out there FWIW. I had been wondering how people were able to get such great meta information into the links and stories that they posted on Facebook, especially when it came to stories from news websites or blogs. I found the page on Facebook’s sharing service here http://www.facebook.com/share_partners.php. It listed several meta and link tags that help the share service work better. I added these tags

• <meta name=”title” content=”page_title” />
• <meta name=”description” content=”audio_description” />
• <link rel=”image_src” xhref=”audio_image_src url (eg. album art)” />
• <link rel=”audio_src” xhref=”audio_src url” />
• <meta name=”audio_type” content=”Content-Type header field” />
• <meta name=”audio_title” content=”audio_title (eg. song name)” />
• <meta name=”audio_artist” content=”audio_artist_name” />

systematically in our CMS, modifying the code to pick up the relevant content from the database when the page is hit. It works really well, and I noticed that Digg uses the same format, leading me to believe that this is becoming an important technique for distributing our content. I apologize if this is old hat to you, but I thought that someone else might benefit from this little tidbit.

Earlier this evening I took the following survey (which runs through December 7 and takes about 15-25 minutes to complete):

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/11115

And I have to say that, as far as surveys go, this one had the benefit of actually teaching me something about the various shades of creative commons licensing.

As public broadcasters, I would encourage anyone who is interested in producing Non-commercial, Creative Commons licensed content to take a few minutes to complete this questionnaire. I do not think, as an industry, we’ve fully explored the issue of licensing options that arise once our work is published to the web. I don’t think we’ve fully defined in what ways a public broadcasting story becomes *public*? Do we want the finished reporting of station journalists to be reused in other works… by the public, or even by other media outlets? Do our current licenses reflect the many ways that public radio content can be (re)used (or based on our charters in what ways our content *should be* reused) and to what benefit?

With this in mind, here is a list of thought provoking use cases that I “lifted” from the creative commons survey. These questions are from the section where you are asked “how would you define the following statements about your work? 100 = ‘Definitely A Commercial Use’ and 1 = ‘Definitely A Noncommercial Use’?”

Thinking about your answers may get you thinking about different ways in which you would, and would not, want your station’s stories to appear”:

* The user would make money from selling a copy of your work

* The work is used in a profit-making venture, and your work would be changed or altered to a considerable degree

* A not-for-profit organization would make money from the use of your work, but only enough to cover the costs of copying and distributing the work (for example, a not-for-profit uses your work in a manual about emergecy medical care, which it sells for just eno ugh to cover the costs of copying and distributing the manual)

* A not-for-profit organization would make money from the use of your work, enough to cover the costs of copying and distributing the work, and also some operating costs (for example, a not-for-profit uses your work in a manual about emergency medical care, which it sells for enough to cover the costs of copying and distributing the manual, and pay some staff salaries)

* The work would be used in a profit-making venture, and only a small part of your work would be used

* A not-for-profit organization would make money from the use of your work, enough to contribute to its endowment fund

* The user intends to make money from selling a copy of your work

* A for-profit company would make money from the use of your work, but only enough to cover the costs of copying and distributing the work (for example, a private school that charges tuition uses your work in course materials, but only charges students the cost of copying and distributing the course materials)

* A for-profit company would make money from the use of your work, and would donate all the money it makes to a not-for-profit organization

* The user would not make money directly from the use of your work, but your work would be used to promote the user or the user’s work (for example, your photograph appears on posters promoting the user’s concert or the cover of a CD containing the user’s music)

* The work would be used in a profit-making venture, and your entire work or “the heart” of your work would be used

* The user would make money by selling something that includes your work (for example, the user sells a video that includes one of your songs on the soundtrack)

* Your work would be used by the government or a state-run entity

* Your work would be used by a not-for-profit organization to raise money to sustain its operations

* Your work would be used for course materials in a school - a not-for-profit organization that charges tuition

* The user would be a for-profit company, and your work would be shared with the entire company

* The user would be a large for-profit company

* The user would be a small for-profit company, that has yet to turn a profit

* The user would be a for-profit company, and your work would be shared with a small group of employees

* Your work would be used by a not-for-profit organization to raise money for its endowment fund

* Your work would be used for course materials in a school — a not-for-profit organization that does not charge tuition