I’m pleased to announce the launch of microformats.org, a new community-based site providing a home for anything and everything regarding microformats. With many contributors, format authors, and design aficionados donating their talents and enthusiasm, it was only natural to create a homebase that would support not only the current buzz about microformats, but that would also help spread the word and inspire new formats and ways of thinking about meaningful markup.
If you’re new to microformats, then now is perhaps the most convenient time to become familiar with them. This site is stacked to the rafters with information on what microformats are, what they do, who’s involved with them, as well as the detailed specificatons themselves.
In the true spirit of the web, microformats are designed for humans first, taking advantage of what works today. Built on exisiting standards such as XML and XHTML, microformats are a new way of thinking about markup, exposing the visible data that’s already in page content. If you’ve ever pondered the many ways in which to markup an event, a calendar or a business card, then you’ve already understood the importance of microformats. By deciding on “micro” “formats” for valuable chunks of data, we can apply a rich structure that we, as humans, can write, edit, and understand. Microformats are about using the full potential of the web now, rather than throwing away what works and getting people to change the way they work.
So, in order to push microformats out to designers and developers of the world, this site was created to do just that. We’ve organized the site into the following areas:
- Wiki
- The wiki is brimming with existing microformat specifications, and detailed information on what they do, how they’re implemented, who’s responsible, etc.
- Code
- The code section of the site is a repository of tools to help you create and implement microformats.
- Discuss
- There are many ways to join the discussion about microformats, including three mailing lists, and IRC channel, and of course the blog.
- About
- Learn more about this site, who’s behind it and the microformats themselves.
We’re honored to have you visiting us, and hope that you will join in helping enable humans to make the most of the web.