Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

what-can-you-do-with-microformats

2008-05-30T22:26:39Z

AsaBerdahl:

__NOTOC__
:If this is your first visit, please see the [[introduction]] page.

= What can you do with microformats? =

There are many great things you can do with microformats. This page presents an opportunity for you to share your favorite explanation of the great things that microformats can do and why you use them.

__TOC__

== Chris Messina ==

<blockquote style="font-size:larger;font-style:italic">
Microformats make it easy for you or anyone to share and reuse data in your webpages and content elsewhere -- for example, to populate an address book, browse social relationships, share reviews, tag content or publish and discover events.
</blockquote>

by Chris Messina, with minor tweaks by Tantek Çelik.

== Michael McCracken ==

Another relatively general blurb:

<blockquote style="font-size:larger;font-style:italic">
With Microformats, you can send & publish things like events, business cards, and product reviews as meaningful XHTML that a person can read in a browser, but a program can import, index and remix as native data.
</blockquote>

It might also be worth adding the following:

<blockquote style="font-size:larger;font-style:italic">
Even better, if you've got a favorite kind of data that's already published on the web but needs to be easier to share, find and remix, *you* can join in or even start the [[process]] to make the web we already have more useful. Examples of efforts already underway include things as diverse as recipes, chat logs, hash checksums, resumés, and citations.
</blockquote>

A future explanation of why I *will* use microformats:

<blockquote style="font-size:larger;font-style:italic">
Someday soon, I'll be able to import correct publication info in one click from a researcher's home page just as easily as I can from a publisher's search portal. It might even be easier, depending on the publisher. And maybe one day with a journal acceptance email, I might get the official XHTML to just post verbatim on my web site, enabling the whole round trip without anyone mangling a name.
</blockquote>

== Ernest Prabhakar ==

<blockquote style="font-size:larger;font-style:italic">
Microformats are a way to enable "smart scraping" of web pages, so that you can create tools and scripts that losslessly extract machine-readable information from cleanly-formatted, human-readable HTML.
</blockquote>

== Ben West ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">
Microformats are a collection of class values that endow webpages with better meaning. This increased fidelity provides support for user interfaces meant to do more than browse the web. A microformat is a specific way to encode a commonly understood concept in any web page. The kind of concept is often embedded as a certain class of objects, such as contacts, reviews, citations, or relationships. Using the class attribute allows authors to style these structures in a way already familiar to many people, as well as denoting the kind of concept being represented. The meaning of the kind of concept is then available to a browser. In this way, we can begin building smarter, and more personable, computers.
</blockquote>

== Jessy Cowan-Sharp ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">
the microformat movement is working to define atomic pieces of content of various types-- so that it is more easily identified in either machine or human form, and can then be integrated, re-mixed, or simply recognized and used appropriately, in applications beyond the one they were initially deployed in. microformats support a move to a network experience less defined by the application you are running or page you are viewing, and more defined by the content itself.
</blockquote>

== AnnoyEd ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">
Designers can create CSS styles to control layout and design, making the information more or less aesthetically pleasing to the eye, while engineers can write software to allow easy interaction with the data (importing contact info into an address book or event info into a calendar), allowing the consumer do more than just read the information.
</blockquote>

== Alan Hogan ==

<blockquote>You can make your content more findable (e.g. by using [[rel-tag]]) and less ambiguous (e.g. with [[hCard]] and [[hCal]]) with minimal effort.</blockquote>

== Michael McCracken ==

<blockquote>You can publish your Signature, Avatar and other Data and use them for all your Web Profiles being assured that all your Profiles will always be up to date</blockquote>

== Asa Berdahl ==

<blockquote>Make the content more than text. You can take a page and leave it how it is, or you can add the relation attribute here and there, or even start using the hCard, or hCalender, and get even more out of that page. See, microformats doesn't ask you to start doing something entirely different, it just asks that you start doing what you were already doing, but better. Microformats ensures quality of coding, and in content. Why not use it?</blockquote>

== See Also ==

* [[what-are-microformats]]
* [[faq]]

what-are-microformats

2008-05-30T22:21:40Z

AsaBerdahl:

__NOTOC__

First time visitors, see the [[introduction]] page first.

<h1>What are microformats?</h1>
{{TOC-right}}

== Launch Definition ==

The current definition on the [http://microformats.org home page] says:

<blockquote style="font-size:larger">Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.</blockquote>

originally written by Dan Cederholm with help from Tantek Çelik for the launch of [http://microformats.org microformats.org] on June 20th, 2005.

== From The Mailing List ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger">Microformats are simple conventions for embedding semantics in HTML to enable decentralized development.</blockquote>

from someone on the microformats-discuss mailing list. Please link/cite if you know the origin of this.

== More Specifically From The Mailing List ==
One popular definition from our [http://microformats.org/discuss/ mailing list] (see also: [[mailing-lists]]) is "simple conventions for embedding semantics in HTML to enable decentralized development." More precisely, microformats can be defined as:
<blockquote style="font-size:larger" cite="http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2005-September/000922.html">
:simple conventions
:for embedding semantic markup
::for a specific problem domain
:in human-readable (X)HTML/XML documents, Atom/RSS feeds, and "plain" XML
::that normalize existing content usage patterns
::using brief, descriptive class names
::often based on existing interoperable standards
:to enable decentralized development
::of resources, tools, and services
</blockquote>

http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2005-September/000922.html by Dr. [http://ihack.us/ Ernie Prabhakar]

"Or do you just use your browser to browse? That's so 20th century." -- [http://diveintomark.org Mark Pilgrim]

== Chris Messina ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger">
Microformats are simple codes that you can use to identify specific kinds of data, like people or events, in your webpages.
</blockquote>

== Tantek Çelik ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger">Microformats are the way to publish and share information on the web with higher fidelity.For example, if a company wanted their contact information to be easily found and shared, they would publish it with [[hcard|hCard]]. Similarly if an organization is planning a series of events and wants more people to know about them and add them to their calendars, then they would publish their events listing with [[hcalendar|hCalendar]]. For advocacy groups, whenever they take a position on some political leader, some piece of legislation etc., if they wanted their evaluations/reviews/ratings of those people/laws to be more easily found and passed around, they would publish such opinions with [[hreview|hReview]]. For all of these, to make it easier, publishers can use [[implementations|tools and services that support microformats]].The key here is that microformats are simple/easy enough that the any organizations own web authors/designers can easily add them in themselves. Adding microformats is easier than publishing an RSS feed for example. You don't have to be a programmer. Anyone with decent (X)HTML+CSS authoring/writing skills can use microformats. Pretty much anyone who is literate can be taught how to author HTML+CSS, and thus microformats makes use of very widely available skill sets.</blockquote>

From an IRC conversation 2006-06-06 which helped "knowprose" grok microformats. Update 2006-06-07: knowprose's blog post [http://www.knowprose.com/node/15844 Making Sense of Microformats: Have Data, Will Find It].

<blockquote style="font-size:larger">microformats are carefully designed (X)HTML class names that extend the semantics of (X)HTML and enable authors to publish higher semantic fidelity content such as people, events, reviews, etc.</blockquote>

From an IRC conversation 2006-07-28 with tcaspers on irc.freenode.net/#wasp.

<blockquote style="font-size:larger">a microformat is way of adding more meaning to web pages beyond normal HTML headings and paragraphs, so you can indicate mentions of people, companies, events, reviews, tags, etc.</blockquote>

From an instant message conversation 2007-07-06.

== Drew McLellan ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger">Microformats are a way of attaching extra meaning to the information published on a web page. This extra semantic richness works alongside the information already presented, and can be used for the benefit of people and computers. This is mostly done through adding special pre-defined names to the class attribute of existing XHTML markup.</blockquote>

from an IRC conversation

== Aaron Gustafson ==
Simply put: "Microformats are a codification of convention." -- [http://easy-reader.net Aaron Gustafson]

==Alok Jain==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger">microformats are evolving frameworks for how to present commonly used data items. For e.g. hCard microformat provides framework to capture a person's details First, middle, last name,company, contact info etc.</blockquote>

In my view this is doing two things:
*a Bringing some amount of standardization to commonly used data sets, which can lead to several benefits towards data retreival
*a Bringing an implicit meta data structure which again can be used to fetch informaiton at more granular level. SO in above example one could fetch just the company name, even thought there is not meta data around company name

[http://www.iPrincipia.com Alok Jain]

== Dave Sanford ==
Chris asked me to contribute my 'definition,' although I refer to it as a distillation:

“Microformats are a way of identifying and labeling classes of commonly used data that make it easier for humans or computers to locate or distribute such information on websites.”

==Andy Mabbett==
Here's my re-write of the current opening blurb, from:

<blockquote style="font-size:larger">Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.</blockquote>

to:

<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">Microformats are a way of adding simple markup to human-readable data items such as events, contact details or locations, on web pages, so that the information in them can be extracted by software and indexed, searched for, saved, cross-referenced or combined.</blockquote>

Which can be followed by:

<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">More technically, they are items of semantic markup, using just standard (X)HTML with a set of common class-names. They are open and available, freely, for anyone to use.</blockquote>

Principles:
*Start with "Microformats are"
*Mention web pages
*Say what purpose microformats serve
*Use plain language

== Guillaume Lebleu ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger">Microformats are simple standardized annotations of content available on the Web that provide a practical solution today to more productive and decentralized Web-based information search and sharing. </blockquote>

<blockquote style="font-size:larger">In other words, Microformats allow you today to copy/paste information from a Web page, for instance someone's contact information from their blog to your address book, instead of manually retyping it. Eventually, microformats will allow anyone to make the information they publish easily sharable and searchable (products, events, resume, etc.) without having to duplicate and maintain up-to-date their data in centralized databases.</blockquote>

== BenWest ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">
A microformat is a specific collection of names, values, and accompanying structure defined through rigorous market research intended to consider pervasive use of semantic html that increases data fidelity in HTML-borne data widely distributed on the web.

Microformats are more than one of these, eg "hcard and hcal are microformats."
</blockquote>

== DerrickPallas ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">microformats are semantics with momentum, a codification of what everyone did anyway. They are what works, written down.</blockquote>

== Alessandro Martin ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">
Microformats are frames for your contents. Using microformats you tell, in a way both humans and machines can understand, what is the basic meaning of what you are writing in a web document.
</blockquote>

written by [http://www.thinkpragmatic.net Alessandro Martin].

== Alan Hogan ==
<blockquote>
Microformats are a guarantee that anyone who wants to can grab certain types of data from your website without worrying much that a site redesign will require the to build a whole new parser.

Microformats is to people and comptuers what Java is to operating systems. Java programs are written once and run on Mac, Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc. Microformats-enabled web pages are written once and are understandable by both humans and computers.
</blockquote>

written by [http://alanhogan.com/ Alan Hogan].

==Hugh Macleod==

[http://flickr.com/photos/tantek/1385900792 http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1276/1385900792_0769162b18.jpg]

2007 September by [http://gapingvoid.com Hugh Macleod].

== Toby Inkster ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">You know all that stuff you already have on your website? Microformats tell computers what that stuff is.
</blockquote>

== Asa Berdahl ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">microformats are a set of rules that utilize present technology to make it not only more easily interactive, but human-friendly as well. microformats uses long standing practices of good web design techniques combined with simple changes in coding to make content far more than just plain text.</blockquote>

written by Asa Berdahl.

== Add Yours Here ==
<blockquote style="font-size:larger;">microformats are...(insert your definition here)
</blockquote>

written by You.

'''Note:''' feedback on the existing definition or those on this page can be found in the [[definition-feedback]]. Please add feedback there (rather than inline here).

== See Also ==
* [[what-can-you-do-with-microformats]]
* [[faq]]
* [[definition-feedback]]

== Translation ==
* [[what-are-microformats-fr|c'est quoi les microformats]] (fr)