Chapter 8: Timeshifting Life 329 Loads of bulk metadata is today being created automatically, as RSS feeds accompanying new web content (such as photoblogs). We expect this trend to expand and continue, and propose that RSS integration to metadata creation schemes could easily pay off in the future. • RSS is a major metadata source An interesting notion related to the smartness of metadata is the awareness of its origins. In other words, we could develop schemes that allow tracing a content object to its roots in the case of, for instance, multiple generations of copies. A potential yet largely unstud- ied enabler is the usage of genetic coding for producing globally unique identifi ers (GUID) for content objects. Such an identifi er would allow us to check the ancestor object of any content object, which again allows us to check its ancestor, and so forth. Undoubtedly, there are several unsolved questions and potential threats related to such traceability. • Tracing objects back to their “roots” One more example of enablers is smarter user interface compo- nents that have built-in support for using metadata. For instance, list and grid components could provide sorting, fi ltering, and grouping properties, where the user could change the organization criteria quickly. This would facilitate quick ways to organize content and gen- erate different kinds of views to the content mass (see the discussion on Matrix Browser in Chapter 6). Another example is a zoomable user interface (ZUI), where the widest zoom level uses automatic grouping, sorting, and summarization, and as the users zooms closer, new and relevant information related to the objects is revealed (Figure 8-1). Furthermore, metadata enables dynamic browsing of content based on associations and relations between the content objects, instead of fi le- folder hierarchies. • Smarter UIs have metadata functionality built in 8.2 Metadata Creation: Top-Down or Bottom-Up? On a higher level, two approaches to smart metadata can be identifi ed. Either the top-down approach dominates, where metadata is included