blog-description-format

Blog description format (background research)

Discussion Participants

Editors

• Björn Seibert, Robert Bachmann

Authors

• Björn Seibert, Robert Bachmann

Purpose

A microformat to describe the contents of a (we)blog. It provides a specific set of information to categorize a (we)blog. Enables easier search for humans and efficient collection of information by machines.

Here are some of examples for information that might be provided:

• Details about the blog
• Blog name (e.g: "John Doe's Blog")
  • Blog URI (e.g: http://example.org/ )
  • Lanuage used for the blog, read-able by machines (e.g: "en-US" or "de")
  • Topics covered by the blog
  • A short description
  • Available feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.)
  • A small logo image
• Details about the author(s)
  • Name (e.g: "John Doe")
  • Organisation
  • Contact details
  • Geographical Location

Examples

Add real world examples here

Existing practice

Blog description

How do blogs include information about themself?

Feeds

Most blogging tools and services provide information about available feeds in <link> elements.

Example: (random blog from LiveJournal.com)

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/shalom9121/data/rss" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom" href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/shalom9121/data/atom" />

Author information

How do blogs include information about the author?

It seems to be common on blogger.com to include "About me" in the sidebar (see http://www.blogger.com/redirect/next_blog.pyra?navBar=true for a random blog)

See also

• blog-description-format-brainstorming for examples on how things could be done.