Media Asset Management (MAM)

Worth noting is that "media asset management" was used by some early DAM vendors before the term "digital asset management" came into favor. So at that point in time, the terms were absolutely synonymous. Since then, as mentioned in the definition, some have tried to evolve MAM into its own definition.

The danger here is that we're defining an entire industry sub-class based on system features, For example, one could point to certain systems today (2013) and describe them as "media asset management" because they handle video well, but your average DAM solution is likely to evolve the point of handling video well enough to blur the lines of distinction.

I would agree here David that there is a danger of an industry sub-class being developed. Also, as a tag for it, 'media asset management' is not good to signify something that really means 'video only' - or even 'video mostly'.

This is a tricky one to deal with. On the one hand, lots of people use the term so it has acquired an orthodoxy, on the other, to refer to video exclusively, it's linguistically far too imprecise.

It would be better if those involved in producing pure-play video DAM just called their apps by a more literal description, but that pre-supposes giving up the chance to go after non-video pitches, which might not go down too well with the sales personnel involved!