[uf-discuss] NetNewsWire ditches support for microformats

[Ben Ward]

I'm also a long time NNW user, and haven't seen the Microformats UI in  
over a year.

On 16 Aug 2008, at 09:41, Chris Messina wrote:

> * Are microformats valuable in client-side applications?
> * Should their presence be made known to end-users? Where there is
> data that can be converted, should an interface be provided to do so?

> * Is adding hcards to address books and hcalendars to calendars really
> the best possible value of adding microformats parsing to an
> application? If not, what other application has demonstrated
> additional, or different, value?


I don't think it takes much argument to say that microformats can and  
will be useful in client UI, but the NNW UI specifically was not the  
right solution.

I think there's potential to do far more ambitious UI that used  
microformats which would be far more useful to end users and more  
inspiring to authors. NNW has a source list down the left hand side  
with ‘Latest News’, ‘Flagged Items’ and ‘Clippings’. An ‘Upcoming  
Events’ item in there, generated from hCalendar in feeds (and  
optionally exposed to iCal as well) would, in my brain-farting mode,  
be a far more engaging prospect for users and publishers.

The NNW UI was a great little experiment, but authors need more  
substantial ideas to encourage them to publish more. If Newsgator were  
saying ‘use hCalendar — it's a standard!’ and link it to some UI in  
their software, I think they'd get interest.


B