Good point Matt. I'm sure no one on your team has any grand visions of defining the new picture tagging standard.
I, for one, am very excited about what's been done so far -- (although I think there's still much to be desired from an image cataloging standpoint)
I have seriously been searching for an image cataloging program that would allow me to tag files for years. Three years ago, I built an Access database for tracking picture info, and it worken well for a few months and about 1000 pictures -- as it grew, it started becoming impossible to maintining my database, worrying about filenames/directories/drives matching, copying, editing, creating different formats form pictures became impossible to manage without storing data -inside- the image file.
After an exhaustive search for a program that would suit my needs, I had actually given up. All the applications that read/write IPTC info had one major flaw or another, mostly revolving around the difficulty of mass updating/file renaming/etc. Many did not do lossless rotates/edits, and often updating some fields seemed to erase others.
Although not many average consumers are advanced enough today to tackle JPEG tagging, there has to be a HUGE untapped market if the right tools come along. Millions of people use digital cameras, and as their collections grow, there must be a major need for image cataloging for the masses.
Media jukebox has always been great at managing tags in MP3's, and I've always wondered why nobody could come up with an image management application that was just as easy & powerful for JPEGS.
Now, here's why I don't see any problem adopting MJ's system as a consumer:
1. Tagged info CAN be exported. As far as I can tell, just dump all your files in a playlist, and use the export feature.
2. When the future Jpeg standard comes out, it seems as if it would not be terribly difficuly to build support for it into a future version. Perhaps a tool could be used to allow us to map our custom fields into a new 'standard' field. Then erase the old MJ tag.
Here's what I wish the product did:
1. Supported IPTC tags (even read-only). Ideally, I would like to see support for IPTC AND custom tags, but I can live without it for now.
2. EXIF support. Almost all current image management apps can read these tags that give you camera info. For example, I'd like to be able to sort by which digital camera from the treeview.
3. Slideshow text overlays
JW