[uf-new] Microformat for Music Downloads

[Scott Reynen]

On Apr 6, 2007, at 10:39 AM, Manu Sporny wrote:

> 1. Extend hAtom/hReview to support a very small subset of Marian and
> your problem description, solving a simple problem, but potentially
> bloating a Microformat when a new microformat is needed.

I don't think extending hAtom is an option.  Music is not fundamental  
to the purpose of hAtom.  But we could still use hAtom with the  
addition of music-specific properties that aren't part of hAtom.

> 2. Complete media-info - which will solve both your and Marian's  
> problem
> descriptions, but could take a really long time to solve a complex  
> problem.
> 3. Create a very simple hAudio microformat, which can then be  
> integrated
> into media-info, solving your problem and Marian's problem. It would
> also lay some foundation for media-info, which I know Scott was
> concerned about. The downside being YAuF - yet another Microformat.

These are mutually exclusive options in name only.  The same  
properties can be 1) used with hAtom, 2) used in media-info, and 3)  
used outside both hAtom and media-info.  The semantics of something  
like class="album-title" don't change when we use them with a  
different microformat, as long as we define them clearly.  That's the  
"modularity / embeddability" principle:

http://microformats.org/about/

I suspect the music downloads problem can be solved by using some  
semantics from hAtom and introducing other new HTML semantics (e.g.  
album title) that may be part of media-info in the future.  But I see  
no reason we need to give those new semantics a separate microformat  
name, and no reason we need to wait for all of media-info to be  
complete before we start using them.  The point is solving the  
problem.  If we solve this problem without creating a whole new  
microformat with a whole new name, that's still a successful outcome.

--
Scott Reynen
MakeDataMakeSense.com