Google applications contain [types of] assets, either created within the application, or imported into the application. In Gmail, you have objects, emails, and Gmail enables users to add metadata to the email in the form of tags or “Labels”. Labeling emails is a very easy way to organize these assets, emails. If you’re a bit more organized, you may even devise a logical taxonomy to classify your emails.
An email can also be put into a folder and this is completely different than what we are talking about with labels. An email may be placed into a folder, and have a parent child folder hierarchy. Only the name of the folder, and it’s correlations to positions in the hierarchy provide this relational metadata.
For personal use, or for small to medium size businesses, users may want to categorize all of the Google “objects” from each Google App, so why Isn’t there the capability to apply labels across all Google App assets? If you work at a law firm, for example, and have documents in Google Docs, and use Google for email, it would be ideal to leverage a company wide taxonomy, and upon any internal search discover all objects logically grouped in a container by labels.
For each Google object asset, such as email in Gmail, users may apply N number of labels to each Google Object asset.
A [Google] dashboard, or portal view may be used to display and access Google assets across Google applications, grouped by Labels . A Google Apps “Portal Search” may consist of queries that contain asset labels. A relational, Google object repository containing assets across all object types (e.g. Google Docs), may be leveraged to store metadata about each Google asset and their relationships.
A [Google] dashboard, or portal view may be organized around individuals (e.g. personal), teams, or an organization. So, in a law firm, for example, a case number label could be applied to Google Docs, Google Photos (i.e. Photos and Videos), and of course, Gmail.
A relatively simple feature to be implemented with a lot of value for Google’s clients, us? So, why isn’t it implemented?
One better, when we have facial recognition code implemented in Photos (and Videos), applying Google labels to media assets may allow for correlation of Emails to Photos with a rule based engine.
The Google Search has expanded into the mobile Google app.
Leveraging Google “Cards“, developers may create “Cards” for a single or group of Google assets. Grouping of Google assets may be applied using “Labels”. As Google assets go through a business or personal user workflow, additional metadata may be added to the asset, such as additional “Labels”.
Expanding upon this solution, scripts may be created to “push” assets through a workflow, perhaps using Google Cloud Functions. Google “Cards” may be leveraged as “the bit” that informs users when they have new items to process in a workflow.
Metadata, or Labels, may be used such as “Document Ready for Legal Review” or “Legal Document Review Completed”.
