What is it?
Previously, melative used a “linkage” system, similar to del.ico.us, though links were posted on media-titles. There was no use of tags, simply sending URIs at titles. Associations are similar to this in that they do not use tags, but are still a kind of bookmark. The key difference is the added value of relation.
Relation is an enumerated value that describes the relations between the URI and the title. It may be a minute detail, but it allows for significant data.
Key Attributes
Certain elements are required, but relation is optional (defaults to ‘general’).
- uri
- address to be associated
- title
- page title, or short description of uri
- relation
- enumeration: general, article, audio, feed, forum, journal, review, video, defaults to general
Example
uri: http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/16230/cLOUDDEAD_cLOUDDEAD
title: Pitchfork Review of cLOUDDEAD
relation: review
This will “bookmark” the uri as review on the musical album cLOUDEAD.
Very simple, no? The purpose of this is that melative acknowledges vast resources around the net, but does not intend to compete by hosting videos, audio, articles, reviews, etc. Rather, melative associations act as a resource of resources, leading users to useful, user-associated data.
Future
Of course, one future aspect is voting on the usefulness or quality of an association. Theoretically, voting could connect an association to another user’s group of associations, thus “bookmarking” with the same attributes as the primary association, but without a direct entry; (multiple users can associate the same uri, with different titles and relations, but this would allow associating based on a previous association).
note: that last bit may seem confusing
