aggregate-microformat-template-examples

The Problem

Many pages on the web contain or reference aggregates or summaries of other data: a summary of 173 reviews for a business, a summary of 25 running shoes for sale, a summary of a discussion with 501 individual posts. Naturally, the summary data is the best summary of the page itself and why a user should visit it.

We tried to solve this for the case of review summaries, but then realized that our approach applied to similar problems of aggregating other kinds of microformat data. The problem is to come up with a simple "pattern" or "template" that can be used to annotate aggregate information about pages that contain or reference multiple microformat instances.

Participants

• Othar Hansson
• Kavi Goel
• Jay Myers

Real-World Examples

Aggregate reviews (aggregate hReview)

Showing aggregate review information for products or businesses is very common on the web. hReview is designed to annotate a single user's review but not summarize a collection of user reviews.

• Amazon
  • http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FA1NFA/
  • Aggregation of user reviews for a product. Up to 10 reviews per page
  • Includes 1-5 stars average rating and the total number of reviews
  • Also includes number of reviews for each score (1-5)

• Yelp
  • http://www.yelp.com/biz/vive-sol-restaurant-mountain-view
  • Shows 1-5 stars average rating and the total number of reviews
  • Also includes number of reviews for each score (1-5)
  • The site highlights recurring themes from reviews (i.e. "The food is delicious - love the chicken mole.") and the number of reviews where such comments were made.

For a longer list of aggregate review examples, see aggregate-review-examples.

Summary of discussion boards (aggregate hAtom)

• BBC News
  • http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=6305&edition=2&ttl=20090406181909
  • Shows the total number of comments posted and the date of the most recent post.

• AARP discussion board
  • http://www.aarp.org/community/groups/searchGroups.bt?orderBy=1&categoryId=43
  • Shows the total number of comments posted and the date of the most recent post.

Lists of product offers (aggregate hListing?)

Another common occurrence on the web is to have many offers for a product from different sellers. Shopping aggregators like Amazon, Nextag, Pricegrabber, etc all do this. Solving this problem also requires some rationalization of hListing and hProduct, but in any case aggregations of offers examples are as follows.

• Amazon
  • http://www.amazon.com/Sony-BDP-S550-1080p-Blu-ray-Player/dp/B001FN3ZRQ
  • Many aggregations on this page (aggregations of reviews and sellers)
  • The "15 used & new from $254.12" shows the number of sellers and the low price amongst those offers

• CNET Reviews
  • http://reviews.cnet.com/1770-5_7-0.html?query=monitor&tag=srch
  • Shows price range (low and high price) and number of sellers for the Samsung SyncMaster T220.

• Pricegrabber
  • http://clothing.pricegrabber.com/mens-athletic-shoes/Nike-Shox-Experience-Men-Running-Shoes/m83885830.html
  • Shows the lowest priced offer and the number of offers

Summary info for lists of products (aggregate hProduct)

• BuyFineArt.com
  • http://www.buy-fineart.com/pricerange.asp?f=50&t=99
  • Shows price range and total count of products in the category

Summaries that only contain a count

For many search results pages (or category pages showing a list of items), just knowing the number of results is valuable.

• Recipes on Food Network
  • http://www.foodnetwork.com/search/tortilla+soup/results.do?fnSearchType=recipe
  • 102 recipes (aggregate hRecipe)
• People with the name "Kevin Marks" on Facebook
  • http://www.facebook.com/s.php?q=kevin+marks&n=-1&k=400000000010&sf=r&init=q&sid=f88be874d43681c8bfd0d98fe3c47634
  • 414 people (aggregate hCard)
• Concerts on Pollstar
  • http://www.pollstar.com/resultsArtist.aspx?ID=74518&SortBy=Date&SearchBy=bob%20dylan
  • 12 upcoming Bob Dylan concerts (aggregate hCalendar)

See also

• Aggregation of microformats: formats - brainstorming

• Aggregate reviews: examples - formats - brainstorming