blog-description-format

Blog description format

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.

Information to be provided

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
  • A small logo image
• Details about the author(s)
  • Name (e.g: "John Doe")
  • Contact details
  • Geographical Location

A possible way to describe/markup the information listed above:

<div class="blogformat" xml:lang="en">
   <p><img class="logo" alt="" 
        src="http://rbach.priv.at/Misc/2005/Smiley.gif" />
   <a class="author" href="http://example.org/jdoe"><span title="John Doe">My</span></a> 
   <a class="bookmark" href="http://example.org/blog" title="John Doe's Blog">blog</a>
   about 
   <span class="description">
   <a rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tags/web+standards">Web standards</a>,
   <a rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tags/css">CSS</a>,
   <a rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tags/xhtml">XHTML</a>
   and topics releated to web development.</span></p>
   <p>There are 
   <a rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://example.org/feeds/atom">Atom</a> and 
   <a rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://example.org/feeds/rss">RSS 2.0</a>
   feeds available.</p>
</div>

Note 1: Author's name is provided using <span title="John Doe">, the rest of the author-related information is provided on http://example.org/jdoe.

Note 2: Tags describe the categories of the blog, they are contained in the blog's short description.

Examples

(add real-world examples here)

Existing practise

(add existing practise here)