[uf-discuss] Greetings microformatters

[Chris Messina]

Hi Ryan,

Just a quick reply... take a look at rel=directory
(http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-directory). That might get you
started. Note that Technorati's Blog Finder
(http://technorati.com/blogs/) works around this concept.

Chris

On 11/29/05, Ryan Cannon <ryan at ryancannon.com> wrote:
> My name is Ryan Cannon and I am a master's student at U of M studying
> human-computer interaction, semantic web design, and basically
> looking for ways to contribute to the field. I read about
> Microformats in the Digitial Web Magazine Primer  and more recently
> in Boss & Lie's article in A List Apart. I think the idea of µf is an
> incredible one—essentially codifying best practices for common
> applications. I believe this will go a long way to abstracting
> semantic XHTML development once the dev. tools support it well.
>
> Anyway, I've rooted around in the archives, but perhaps I've missed
> something. Some in my field have uncovered that the way people
> attempt to search the internet is much different than what the
> technology allows. For instance, people want to search for categories
> of web sites, e.g. news sites, personal sites, informational sites,
> or stores. This does not convert well with the Title/Description/
> Keyword and tags method currently in place. What we're missing, to
> use the library analog, is a "subject" field.
>
> If it's already taking place, I'd like to join in the discussion
> about embedding self-reported genre or subject metadata in web pages.
> What this would allow, once properly implemented, is the ability for
> search engines to do something along the following:
>
> Search for words: "Disney"
> In websites about: "Tourism"
> and not about: "Stores OR Merchandise"
>
> Being new to this discussion, I'm not aware of the larger issues
> around an idea like this, but a large one comes to mind: there's no
> engine in place to take advantage of it. But that didn't stop XFN.
>
> Please send me your comments. I've begun to read some of the wiki
> about proposing formats, but I'm nowhere near that stage. I'm more
> interested in if this discussion is taking place, and the things to
> keep in mind when talking about invisible metadata and search engines.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Ryan Cannon
>
> Interactive Developer
> MSI Student, School of Information
> University of Michigan
> http://RyanCannon.com/
>
>
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