Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

microdata

2010-10-04T06:11:15Z

Epicurious: /* microformats in microdata */

<entry-title>microdata</entry-title>

<dfn style="font-style:italic;font-weight:bold">microdata</dfn> is an extension to [[HTML5]] that provides another way to embed [[microformats]] and [[poshformats]] vocabularies.

Specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/

== summary ==
microdata consists of a set of attribute extensions to [[HTML5]]:

* <code>itemprop</code> attribute is a more specific version of <code>class</code>, for field names
* <del><code>subject</code> attribute allows semantically linking within the page. Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].</del>
* <code>itemref</code> attribute allows including properties elsewhere on the page that are not descendants of <code>itemscope</code>. Takes space-separated ids (for example <code>itemref="address phone"</code> would include the elements with <code>id="address"</code> and <code>id="phone"</code>). Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].
* <code>content</code> attribute on the <code>meta</code> element can be used to include invisible data that is not part of the content. As current browsers move <code>meta</code> inside <code><head></code>, make sure to include via <code>itemref</code>. Conceptually similar to the 'value-title' feature of the [[value-class-pattern]].
* <code>itemscope</code> attribute identifies blocks to be marked as structured data. Conceptually similar to the [[mfo]] brainstorming.
* <code>itemtype</code> attribute to specify the type for an item (for example: <code><nowiki>itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard"</nowiki></code>)

For common semantics on the web (e.g. [[hcard|people+organizations]], [[hcalendar|events]], [[hreview|reviews]], [[hatom|syndicated content]]), [[microformats]] are still simpler and easier than [[microdata]], and are already well implemented across numerous tools and services.

For uncommon, rare, experimental, or one-off semantics, [[microdata]] offers a simpler and easier to understand solution than alternatives that use [[namespaces]] like XML/RDF/RDFa. Developers should consider [[microdata]] as another way of expressing semantics that they may otherwise use [[poshformats]] for.

== history ==
microdata didn't happen overnight. Much of the design and simplicity of microdata is based on years of work on microformats [[principles]] deliberately designed to help guide and create simpler, more usable and accessible solutions. It happened so quickly because Ian Hickson designed microdata based upon years of work by both the microformats community, and the concept of using reverse-domain-names as unique qualifiers (popularized perhaps by Java programming language naming conventions).

== potential ==
I think there are some very clever ideas in general purpose microdata, it has a lot of potential, and despite being a bit more abstract than microformats, still much simpler/easier to explain to web designers/developers/programmers than any form of RDF.

General microdata may be the right solution to the general purpose data representation problem that microformats specifically chose not to work on.

- [[User:Tantek|Tantek]] 17:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

== microdata vocabularies ==
Separate from the [[microdata]] specification, there are a number of microdata vocabularies, based on microformats and previous formats like vCard and iCalendar.

=== microdata vCard vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvcard/</nowiki>, the microdata vCard vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vcard part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCard]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcard-faq|hCard FAQ]] and
** [[hcard-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcard-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCard 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCard will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vCard vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCard, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the vCard RFC. as well.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabularies ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Person/ Person] and [http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Organization/ Organization]), which are also forks of hCard/vCard, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata vEvent vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvevent/</nowiki>, the microdata vEvent vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vevent part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCalendar]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcalendar-faq|hCalendar FAQ]] and
** [[hcalendar-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcalendar-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCalendar 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCalendar will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vEvent vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCalendar's vevent root class name and applicable properties, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the iCalendar RFC.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabulary ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Event/ Event]), which is also a fork of hCalendar/iCalendar, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata Licensing Works vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdwork/</nowiki>, the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#licensing-works part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

The [[licensing]] microformat work provides a potential microformat alternative to the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary.

Please see: [[licensing-brainstorming]] and provide feedback.

== microformats in microdata ==
For those that are ok with going with an [[HTML5]] only solution, it may be interesting to consider and document a consistent way to use microformats and microformats vocabulary in microdata.

A possible simple implementation could look like this:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Corey Mwamba</title>
</head>
<body>
<section itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard" itemscope>
<h1 itemprop="fn">Corey Mwamba</h1>
<div itemprop="adr" itemscope>
<p itemprop="street-address">56 Nowhere Road</p>
<p itemprop="locality">Nowhere</p>
<p itemprop="postal-code">NO1 6QT</p>
</div>
<a href="http://www.coreymwamba.co.uk/" itemprop="url">My web site</a>
</section>
</body>
</html>
</source>

And here's an simple hCalendar example:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Web 2.0 Conference</title>
</head>
<body>
<div itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar" itemscope>
<a itemprop="url" href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html">
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
</a>
<span itemprop="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:
<time itemprop="dtstart" datetime="2005-10-05">October 5</time>-
<time itemprop="dtend" datetime="2005-10-07">7</time>,
at the <span itemprop="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>
</body>
</html>
</source>

The advantage is that no major re-wiring in thinking is required to adjust real-world usage - but would parsers be able to deal with the change? And in fact, would this require a recasting of microformats themselves? --[[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]] 19:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

== alternatives ==
Since the introduction of [[XMDP]], web authors have been able to define their specific uses of rel attribute values and class names.

(needs expansion with examples)
...

== see also ==
* [[HTML5]]
* [[poshformats]]
* [[principles]]
* [[XMDP]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T09:48:51Z

Epicurious: /* New microformat */

= Brainstorming for a Broadcast Microformat =

This is a brainstorm for Internet radio and TV streams i.e real-time streams corresponding to radio and TV stations rather than individual items or collections of content (as currently proposed for hAudio).

The scope could also encompass broadcast radio and TV if this is considered to be useful in an Internet context.

Examples can be found here [http://microformats.org/wiki/broadcast-examples broadcast-examples]

== Contributors ==
* [[User:ChrisNewell|Chris Newell]], BBC Research
* [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]
* [[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]]

== The Problem ==
The web provides an alternative transmission medium for radio and TV stations, enabling these to reach a global audience.
New Internet-only services have also appeared. A large number of services are now available and there are many web-based
directories listing Internet radio and TV stations under various categories. These directories have to be maintained by
hand because the information cannot easily be collected automatically from web sites. The information these directories
provide is not easily extracted by web browsers and devices such as Internet Radios.

== Elements that come up often in practice ==
The metadata is either general information (e.g. station name) or technical information (e.g. bandwidth)

=== General information ===
* Station name (could use [[hcard|hCard]]'s "organization-unit")
* Broadcaster (could use hCard's "organization-name")
* Description (could also be hCard's "note")
* Image URL (logo) (could use hCard's "logo")
* Category (genre) (could use hCard's "category")
* Language (used by the station rather than for the description)
* Location (could use hCard's "adr" & children)
* Station website (could use hCard's "url")
* Station email (could use hCard's "e-mail")
* AM/FM frequency (could use "[[measure]]" microformat)
* Rating ([[hReview]]?)
* "Now playing" information (could use [[audio-info|hAudio]] and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]])
* Schedule information (could use [[hCalendar]])

=== Technical information ===
* stream URL - the direct URL of the stream (.wma, .ra, etc) or the stream's metafile (.asx, .ram, etc)
* player URL - the URL of a webpage with an embedded media player which plays the stream
* bandwidth (could use the "[[measure]]" microformat)
* codec (MIME types may be of use here)
* delivery - optional. unicast | multicast
* Band (FM/AM/SW/LW/MW/UHF/VHF - used by people generally when talking about radio or TV stations)

== Issues ==
* Some way is needed to distinguish between radio and TV stations (Most examples don't explicitly distinguish between them).

== Possible approaches ==

=== New microformat ===
Define a broadcast microformat.

As with hAudio we could consider splitting content information from format information i.e. define a stream format microformat:

* hStream ('''<code>hstream</code>''')
** '''type''' optional. MIME type using the "type" attribute of the <a> element
** '''bitrate''' optional. using [[measure]]
** '''delivery''' optional. unicast | multicast

Example:

<pre><nowiki>
<a class="hstream" type="audio/vnd.rn-realaudio" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/realaudio/media/r1live.ram">
Real Audio (<abbr class="bitrate hmeasure" title="196608 bit/s">192 Kbps</abbr>, <span class="delivery">multicast</span>)</a>
</nowiki></pre>

For television and radio stations we could have:
* '''broadcast''' (as an optional sub-property of [[hCard]] '''or''' [[hCalendar]])
** frequency (optional, for radio)
*** ''band'' (optional, SW/FM/LW/MW/AM/DAB/...)
*** ''value'' (either as a string e.g. "92MHz", or use [[measure]])
*** ''low/high'' (to show a range)
*** ''geo'' (to give a location - from [[geo]] '''or''' (using the [http://geouri.org/about/ geo: URI scheme] ??) )
** channel (for television)
*** ''band'' (optional, UHF/VHF/DVB-T/DVB-S/...)
*** ''value''
*** ''provider'' (optional: certainly required for digital TV where more than one provider can carry the same channel)
Examples:
* here's an example for a station in Brazil. It operates on FM and AM.
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
96.1<span class="band">FM</span>
</span>
<span class="frequency">
670<span class="band">AM</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* Here's the same thing but with [[measure]]:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">FM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">96.1</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="MegaHertz">MHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">AM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">670</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="kiloHertz">kHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a card for BBC One from another example, with broadcast information added:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<span class="organization-name">BBC</span> <span class="organization-unit">One</span>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freesat</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freeview</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Sky Digital</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Tiscali</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Virgin Media</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a possible example for a Brazilian television affiliate:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">TV Cultura do Amazonas</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Manaus</span>
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">VHF</span>: Channel <span class="value">2</span>
</span>
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">SDTVB</span>: Channel <span class="value">4</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* the <code>value</code> "hypo-property" (since it's lower than a sub-property!) can be used for stations with with more than one frequency: in this example the units are missing as FM implies a certain range of magnitude.

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<span class="value">102.4</span> and
<span class="value">103.5</span>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

but it would be easy to put the units in:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<abbr class="value measure" title="102.4 megaHertz">102.4</abbr> and
<abbr class="value measure" title="103.5 megaHertz">103.5</abbr>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

* a range:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/" class="url">BBC Radio 3</a>
</strong>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
<span class="low">90.2</span> - <span class="high">92.6</span>
<abbr class="band" title="Frequency Modulation broadcast">FM</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<span class="adr">
<span class="country-name">UK</span>
</span>
</div>
</source>

* shortwave radio frequencies can change according to the time of day: here's an example from the morning frequencies at Radio Australia:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vevent">
<strong class="summary">Morning</strong>
<span class="dtstart" title="9:00+08">9 a.m.</span> - <span class="dtend" title="12:00+08">midday</span>
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="value">9660</span>,
<span class="value">15230</span>,
<span class="value">15240</span>,
<span class="value">21725</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</source>
if you wanted to use hMeasure, this could be(?)
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">9660</span>,
<span class="num">15230</span>,
<span class="num">15240</span>,
<span class="num">21725</span>
<span class="unit">kHz</span>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</source>

* Some stations are available at different frequencies at different locations. Rather than making an hCard for each location, it might be easier to insert the geo data into the <code>frequency</code> block: here's a mockup of some of the information from the BBC Radio 4 website:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<p><span class="fn org">Radio 4</span> can be found on the following channels, frequencies and websites:</p>
<ul class="broadcast">
<li class="frequency">
<strong class="band">DAB</strong> Listed as <q class="value">BBC Radio 4</q>, <q class="value">BBC R4</q>, or <q class="value">Radio 4</q> (more info)
</li>

<li class="frequency">
<strong class="band">FM<strong> <span class="low">92</span> - <span class="high">95</span>, <span class="low">103</span>-<span class="high">105</span>
</li>

<li class="frequency">
<strong class="band">LW</strong> 198
</li>

<li class="frequency">
<strong class="band">MW</strong> Medium Wave is only available in some locations:
<span class="value">
<abbr class="geo" title="51.507222;-0.1275">London</abbr> 720
</span>;
<span class="value">
<abbr class="geo" title="50.371397, -4.142431">Plymouth</abbr> 774
</span>;
[...etc.]
</li>
[...]
</ul>
</div>
</source>

=== Extend scope of hAudio and hVideo ===
Depending on the degree of overlap between the required metadata fields it may be practical to extend the scope of the proposed hAudio and hVideo microformats. However, it would not be beneficial to the development process, or to end-users, if this adds additional complexity.

=== Use RDF ===
The potential number of publishers of this information seems fairly small. (Broadcast licences aren't handed out like candy, but sold for enormous amounts of money to, in practice, a fairly small number of organisations.) Most of the publishers are going to be well-financed either by government or commercial interests, so are likely to have large web publishing teams of experienced designers, programmers and system administrators. The "newbie factor" is less relevant here, so the barrier to entry for RDF is lowered.

RDF is not a format, but a set of concepts which can be serialised in several standardised formats, including RDF/XML, eRDF, RDFa, Turtle, RDF/JSON, etc. An example of describing broadcast information using RDFa embedded in HTML is:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station">
<h1 property="tv:stationName"><span property="tv:broadcaster">BBC</span> One</h1>
<p property="tv:description">Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location">United Kingdom</span>.</p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url">http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/</a>.</p>
<p>View: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/</a>.</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This could easily be combined with hCard too:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station" class="vcard">
<div class="fn org">
<h1 property="tv:stationName" class="organization-unit">
<span property="tv:broadcaster" class="organization-name">BBC</span>
One
</h1>
</div>
<p property="tv:description" class="note adr">
Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location" class="country-name">United Kingdom</span>.
</p>
<p>
Link:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/
</a>.
</p>
<p>
View:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
</a>.
</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

Allowing specialist TV-station software to be able to parse the RDF information out, while naive generalist parsers would simply see an hCard, giving them access to most of the same information, but perhaps in lesser fidelity. That is, the RDF parser will understand that the thing being described is a TV station, whereas the hCard parser will only be able to identify that it's an organisation; the RDF parser will know which URL is intended for general information on the station and which is for viewing programmes, the hCard parser will simply see two URLs.

RDF (especially RDFa) offers a good general purpose solution for marking up this kind of specialist information - information which might be too specialised to justify its own microformat. It can easily be combined with microformats, as per the example above, offering a good hybrid solution.

== Combining with other microformats ==

Examples of how a broadcast microformat could be combined with other microformats.

== hAudio & hVideo ==
"Now Playing" information could be provided using [[audio-info|hAudio]] for radio (e.g. to represent the current song) and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]] (e.g. to represent the current film) for TV.

=== hCalendar ===
An event or a schedule of events for a channel could be signalled using [[hcalendar|vEvent or hCalendar]] as child elements.

=== hCard ===
Broadcaster / station details could be marked up with [[hcard|hCard]].

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<div class="organization-name">BBC</div>
<div class="organization-unit">One</div>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Measure ===
A proposed [[measure]]ment microformat could be used for the frequency.

=== hReview ===
Rating could be marked up using [[hReview]].

== Comments ==

The fields listed under technical information are common to the proposed but moribund [[file-format-examples|file microformat]] proposal.

== Related Pages ==
* [[broadcast-examples]]
* [[audio-info-examples]]
* [[video-info-examples]]
* [[media-info-examples]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T08:42:00Z

Epicurious: /* New microformat */

= Brainstorming for a Broadcast Microformat =

This is a brainstorm for Internet radio and TV streams i.e real-time streams corresponding to radio and TV stations rather than individual items or collections of content (as currently proposed for hAudio).

The scope could also encompass broadcast radio and TV if this is considered to be useful in an Internet context.

Examples can be found here [http://microformats.org/wiki/broadcast-examples broadcast-examples]

== Contributors ==
* [[User:ChrisNewell|Chris Newell]], BBC Research
* [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]
* [[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]]

== The Problem ==
The web provides an alternative transmission medium for radio and TV stations, enabling these to reach a global audience.
New Internet-only services have also appeared. A large number of services are now available and there are many web-based
directories listing Internet radio and TV stations under various categories. These directories have to be maintained by
hand because the information cannot easily be collected automatically from web sites. The information these directories
provide is not easily extracted by web browsers and devices such as Internet Radios.

== Elements that come up often in practice ==
The metadata is either general information (e.g. station name) or technical information (e.g. bandwidth)

=== General information ===
* Station name (could use [[hcard|hCard]]'s "organization-unit")
* Broadcaster (could use hCard's "organization-name")
* Description (could also be hCard's "note")
* Image URL (logo) (could use hCard's "logo")
* Category (genre) (could use hCard's "category")
* Language (used by the station rather than for the description)
* Location (could use hCard's "adr" & children)
* Station website (could use hCard's "url")
* Station email (could use hCard's "e-mail")
* AM/FM frequency (could use "[[measure]]" microformat)
* Rating ([[hReview]]?)
* "Now playing" information (could use [[audio-info|hAudio]] and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]])
* Schedule information (could use [[hCalendar]])

=== Technical information ===
* stream URL - the direct URL of the stream (.wma, .ra, etc) or the stream's metafile (.asx, .ram, etc)
* player URL - the URL of a webpage with an embedded media player which plays the stream
* bandwidth (could use the "[[measure]]" microformat)
* codec (MIME types may be of use here)
* delivery - optional. unicast | multicast
* Band (FM/AM/SW/LW/MW/UHF/VHF - used by people generally when talking about radio or TV stations)

== Issues ==
* Some way is needed to distinguish between radio and TV stations (Most examples don't explicitly distinguish between them).

== Possible approaches ==

=== New microformat ===
Define a broadcast microformat.

As with hAudio we could consider splitting content information from format information i.e. define a stream format microformat:

* hStream ('''<code>hstream</code>''')
** '''type''' optional. MIME type using the "type" attribute of the <a> element
** '''bitrate''' optional. using [[measure]]
** '''delivery''' optional. unicast | multicast

Example:

<pre><nowiki>
<a class="hstream" type="audio/vnd.rn-realaudio" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/realaudio/media/r1live.ram">
Real Audio (<abbr class="bitrate hmeasure" title="196608 bit/s">192 Kbps</abbr>, <span class="delivery">multicast</span>)</a>
</nowiki></pre>
----
For television and radio stations we could have:
* '''broadcast''' (as an optional sub-property of [[hCard]] '''or''' [[hCalendar]])
** frequency (optional, for radio)
*** ''band'' (optional, SW/FM/LW/MW/AM/DAB/...)
*** ''value'' (either as a string e.g. 92MHz, or using [[measure]],)
*** ''low/high'' (to show a range)
** channel (for television)
*** ''band'' (optional, UHF/VHF/DVB-T/DVB-S/...)
*** ''value''
*** ''provider'' (optional: certainly required for digital TV where more than one provider can carry the same channel)
Examples:
* here's an example for a station in Brazil. It operates on FM and AM.
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
96.1<span class="band">FM</span>
</span>
<span class="frequency">
670<span class="band">AM</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* Here's the same thing but with [[measure]]:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">FM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">96.1</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="MegaHertz">MHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">AM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">670</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="kiloHertz">kHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a card for BBC One from another example, with broadcast information added:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<span class="organization-name">BBC</span> <span class="organization-unit">One</span>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freesat</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freeview</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Sky Digital</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Tiscali</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Virgin Media</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a possible example for a Brazilian television affiliate:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">TV Cultura do Amazonas</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Manaus</span>
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">VHF</span>: Channel <span class="value">2</span>
</span>
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">SDTVB</span>: Channel <span class="value">4</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* the <code>value</code> "hypo-property" (since it's lower than a sub-property!) can be used for stations with with more than one frequency: in this example the units are missing as FM implies a certain range of magnitude.

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<span class="value">102.4</span> and
<span class="value">103.5</span>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

but it would be easy to put the units in:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<abbr class="value measure" title="102.4 megaHertz">102.4</abbr> and
<abbr class="value measure" title="103.5 megaHertz">103.5</abbr>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

* a range:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/" class="url">BBC Radio 3</a>
</strong>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
<span class="low">90.2</span> - <span class="high">92.6</span>
<abbr class="band" title="Frequency Modulation broadcast">FM</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<span class="adr">
<span class="country-name">UK</span>
</span>
</div>
</source>

* shortwave radio frequencies can change according to the time of day: here's an example from the morning frequencies at Radio Australia:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vevent">
<strong class="summary">Morning</strong>
<span class="dtstart" title="9:00+08">9 a.m.</span> - <span class="dtend" title="12:00+08">midday</span>
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="value">9660</span>,
<span class="value">15230</span>,
<span class="value">15240</span>,
<span class="value">21725</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</source>
if you wanted to use hMeasure, this could be(?)
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">9660</span>,
<span class="num">15230</span>,
<span class="num">15240</span>,
<span class="num">21725</span>
<span class="unit">kHz</span>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</source>

=== Extend scope of hAudio and hVideo ===
Depending on the degree of overlap between the required metadata fields it may be practical to extend the scope of the proposed hAudio and hVideo microformats. However, it would not be beneficial to the development process, or to end-users, if this adds additional complexity.

=== Use RDF ===
The potential number of publishers of this information seems fairly small. (Broadcast licences aren't handed out like candy, but sold for enormous amounts of money to, in practice, a fairly small number of organisations.) Most of the publishers are going to be well-financed either by government or commercial interests, so are likely to have large web publishing teams of experienced designers, programmers and system administrators. The "newbie factor" is less relevant here, so the barrier to entry for RDF is lowered.

RDF is not a format, but a set of concepts which can be serialised in several standardised formats, including RDF/XML, eRDF, RDFa, Turtle, RDF/JSON, etc. An example of describing broadcast information using RDFa embedded in HTML is:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station">
<h1 property="tv:stationName"><span property="tv:broadcaster">BBC</span> One</h1>
<p property="tv:description">Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location">United Kingdom</span>.</p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url">http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/</a>.</p>
<p>View: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/</a>.</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This could easily be combined with hCard too:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station" class="vcard">
<div class="fn org">
<h1 property="tv:stationName" class="organization-unit">
<span property="tv:broadcaster" class="organization-name">BBC</span>
One
</h1>
</div>
<p property="tv:description" class="note adr">
Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location" class="country-name">United Kingdom</span>.
</p>
<p>
Link:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/
</a>.
</p>
<p>
View:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
</a>.
</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

Allowing specialist TV-station software to be able to parse the RDF information out, while naive generalist parsers would simply see an hCard, giving them access to most of the same information, but perhaps in lesser fidelity. That is, the RDF parser will understand that the thing being described is a TV station, whereas the hCard parser will only be able to identify that it's an organisation; the RDF parser will know which URL is intended for general information on the station and which is for viewing programmes, the hCard parser will simply see two URLs.

RDF (especially RDFa) offers a good general purpose solution for marking up this kind of specialist information - information which might be too specialised to justify its own microformat. It can easily be combined with microformats, as per the example above, offering a good hybrid solution.

== Combining with other microformats ==

Examples of how a broadcast microformat could be combined with other microformats.

== hAudio & hVideo ==
"Now Playing" information could be provided using [[audio-info|hAudio]] for radio (e.g. to represent the current song) and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]] (e.g. to represent the current film) for TV.

=== hCalendar ===
An event or a schedule of events for a channel could be signalled using [[hcalendar|vEvent or hCalendar]] as child elements.

=== hCard ===
Broadcaster / station details could be marked up with [[hcard|hCard]].

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<div class="organization-name">BBC</div>
<div class="organization-unit">One</div>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Measure ===
A proposed [[measure]]ment microformat could be used for the frequency.

=== hReview ===
Rating could be marked up using [[hReview]].

== Comments ==

The fields listed under technical information are common to the proposed but moribund [[file-format-examples|file microformat]] proposal.

== Related Pages ==
* [[broadcast-examples]]
* [[audio-info-examples]]
* [[video-info-examples]]
* [[media-info-examples]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T08:27:40Z

Epicurious: /* New microformat */

= Brainstorming for a Broadcast Microformat =

This is a brainstorm for Internet radio and TV streams i.e real-time streams corresponding to radio and TV stations rather than individual items or collections of content (as currently proposed for hAudio).

The scope could also encompass broadcast radio and TV if this is considered to be useful in an Internet context.

Examples can be found here [http://microformats.org/wiki/broadcast-examples broadcast-examples]

== Contributors ==
* [[User:ChrisNewell|Chris Newell]], BBC Research
* [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]
* [[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]]

== The Problem ==
The web provides an alternative transmission medium for radio and TV stations, enabling these to reach a global audience.
New Internet-only services have also appeared. A large number of services are now available and there are many web-based
directories listing Internet radio and TV stations under various categories. These directories have to be maintained by
hand because the information cannot easily be collected automatically from web sites. The information these directories
provide is not easily extracted by web browsers and devices such as Internet Radios.

== Elements that come up often in practice ==
The metadata is either general information (e.g. station name) or technical information (e.g. bandwidth)

=== General information ===
* Station name (could use [[hcard|hCard]]'s "organization-unit")
* Broadcaster (could use hCard's "organization-name")
* Description (could also be hCard's "note")
* Image URL (logo) (could use hCard's "logo")
* Category (genre) (could use hCard's "category")
* Language (used by the station rather than for the description)
* Location (could use hCard's "adr" & children)
* Station website (could use hCard's "url")
* Station email (could use hCard's "e-mail")
* AM/FM frequency (could use "[[measure]]" microformat)
* Rating ([[hReview]]?)
* "Now playing" information (could use [[audio-info|hAudio]] and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]])
* Schedule information (could use [[hCalendar]])

=== Technical information ===
* stream URL - the direct URL of the stream (.wma, .ra, etc) or the stream's metafile (.asx, .ram, etc)
* player URL - the URL of a webpage with an embedded media player which plays the stream
* bandwidth (could use the "[[measure]]" microformat)
* codec (MIME types may be of use here)
* delivery - optional. unicast | multicast
* Band (FM/AM/SW/LW/MW/UHF/VHF - used by people generally when talking about radio or TV stations)

== Issues ==
* Some way is needed to distinguish between radio and TV stations (Most examples don't explicitly distinguish between them).

== Possible approaches ==

=== New microformat ===
Define a broadcast microformat.

As with hAudio we could consider splitting content information from format information i.e. define a stream format microformat:

* hStream ('''<code>hstream</code>''')
** '''type''' optional. MIME type using the "type" attribute of the <a> element
** '''bitrate''' optional. using [[measure]]
** '''delivery''' optional. unicast | multicast

Example:

<pre><nowiki>
<a class="hstream" type="audio/vnd.rn-realaudio" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/realaudio/media/r1live.ram">
Real Audio (<abbr class="bitrate hmeasure" title="196608 bit/s">192 Kbps</abbr>, <span class="delivery">multicast</span>)</a>
</nowiki></pre>
----
For television and radio stations we could have:
* '''broadcast''' (as an optional sub-property of [[hCard]] '''or''' [[hCalendar]])
** frequency (optional, for radio)
*** ''band'' (optional, SW/FM/LW/MW/AM/DAB/...)
*** ''value'' (either as a string e.g. 92MHz, or using [[measure]],)
*** ''low/high'' (to show a range)
** channel (for television)
*** ''band'' (optional, UHF/VHF/DVB-T/DVB-S/...)
*** ''value''
*** ''provider'' (optional: certainly required for digital TV where more than one provider can carry the same channel)
Examples:
* here's an example for a station in Brazil. It operates on FM and AM.
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
96.1<span class="band">FM</span>
</span>
<span class="frequency">
670<span class="band">AM</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>
and with [[measure]]:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">FM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">96.1</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="MegaHertz">MHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">AM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">670</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="kiloHertz">kHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a card for BBC One from another example, with broadcast information added:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<span class="organization-name">BBC</span> <span class="organization-unit">One</span>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freesat</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freeview</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Sky Digital</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Tiscali</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Virgin Media</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a possible example for a Brazilian television affiliate:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">TV Cultura do Amazonas</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Manaus</span>
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">VHF</span>: Channel <span class="value">2</span>
</span>
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">SDTVB</span>: Channel <span class="value">4</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* the <code>value</code> "hypo-property" (since it's lower than a sub-property!) can be used for stations with with more than one frequency: in this example the units are missing as FM implies a certain range of magnitude.

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<span class="value">102.4</span> and
<span class="value">103.5</span>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

but it would be easy to put the units in:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<abbr class="value measure" title="102.4 megaHertz">102.4</abbr> and
<abbr class="value measure" title="103.5 megaHertz">103.5</abbr>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

* a range:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/" class="url">BBC Radio 3</a>
</strong>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
<span class="low">90.2</span> - <span class="high">92.6</span>
<abbr class="band" title="Frequency Modulation broadcast">FM</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<span class="adr">
<span class="country-name">UK</span>
</span>
</div>
</source>

* shortwave radio frequencies can change according to the time of day: here's an example from the morning frequencies at Radio Australia:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vevent">
<strong class="summary">Morning</strong>
<span class="dtstart" title="9:00+08">9 a.m.</span> - <span class="dtend" title="12:00+08">midday</span>
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="value">9660</span>,
<span class="value">15230</span>,
<span class="value">15240</span>,
<span class="value">21725</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</source>
if you wanted to use hMeasure, this could be(?)
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">9660</span>,
<span class="num">15230</span>,
<span class="num">15240</span>,
<span class="num">21725</span>
<span class="unit">kHz</span>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</source>

=== Extend scope of hAudio and hVideo ===
Depending on the degree of overlap between the required metadata fields it may be practical to extend the scope of the proposed hAudio and hVideo microformats. However, it would not be beneficial to the development process, or to end-users, if this adds additional complexity.

=== Use RDF ===
The potential number of publishers of this information seems fairly small. (Broadcast licences aren't handed out like candy, but sold for enormous amounts of money to, in practice, a fairly small number of organisations.) Most of the publishers are going to be well-financed either by government or commercial interests, so are likely to have large web publishing teams of experienced designers, programmers and system administrators. The "newbie factor" is less relevant here, so the barrier to entry for RDF is lowered.

RDF is not a format, but a set of concepts which can be serialised in several standardised formats, including RDF/XML, eRDF, RDFa, Turtle, RDF/JSON, etc. An example of describing broadcast information using RDFa embedded in HTML is:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station">
<h1 property="tv:stationName"><span property="tv:broadcaster">BBC</span> One</h1>
<p property="tv:description">Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location">United Kingdom</span>.</p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url">http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/</a>.</p>
<p>View: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/</a>.</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This could easily be combined with hCard too:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station" class="vcard">
<div class="fn org">
<h1 property="tv:stationName" class="organization-unit">
<span property="tv:broadcaster" class="organization-name">BBC</span>
One
</h1>
</div>
<p property="tv:description" class="note adr">
Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location" class="country-name">United Kingdom</span>.
</p>
<p>
Link:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/
</a>.
</p>
<p>
View:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
</a>.
</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

Allowing specialist TV-station software to be able to parse the RDF information out, while naive generalist parsers would simply see an hCard, giving them access to most of the same information, but perhaps in lesser fidelity. That is, the RDF parser will understand that the thing being described is a TV station, whereas the hCard parser will only be able to identify that it's an organisation; the RDF parser will know which URL is intended for general information on the station and which is for viewing programmes, the hCard parser will simply see two URLs.

RDF (especially RDFa) offers a good general purpose solution for marking up this kind of specialist information - information which might be too specialised to justify its own microformat. It can easily be combined with microformats, as per the example above, offering a good hybrid solution.

== Combining with other microformats ==

Examples of how a broadcast microformat could be combined with other microformats.

== hAudio & hVideo ==
"Now Playing" information could be provided using [[audio-info|hAudio]] for radio (e.g. to represent the current song) and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]] (e.g. to represent the current film) for TV.

=== hCalendar ===
An event or a schedule of events for a channel could be signalled using [[hcalendar|vEvent or hCalendar]] as child elements.

=== hCard ===
Broadcaster / station details could be marked up with [[hcard|hCard]].

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<div class="organization-name">BBC</div>
<div class="organization-unit">One</div>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Measure ===
A proposed [[measure]]ment microformat could be used for the frequency.

=== hReview ===
Rating could be marked up using [[hReview]].

== Comments ==

The fields listed under technical information are common to the proposed but moribund [[file-format-examples|file microformat]] proposal.

== Related Pages ==
* [[broadcast-examples]]
* [[audio-info-examples]]
* [[video-info-examples]]
* [[media-info-examples]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T08:25:24Z

Epicurious: /* Contributors */

= Brainstorming for a Broadcast Microformat =

This is a brainstorm for Internet radio and TV streams i.e real-time streams corresponding to radio and TV stations rather than individual items or collections of content (as currently proposed for hAudio).

The scope could also encompass broadcast radio and TV if this is considered to be useful in an Internet context.

Examples can be found here [http://microformats.org/wiki/broadcast-examples broadcast-examples]

== Contributors ==
* [[User:ChrisNewell|Chris Newell]], BBC Research
* [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]
* [[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]]

== The Problem ==
The web provides an alternative transmission medium for radio and TV stations, enabling these to reach a global audience.
New Internet-only services have also appeared. A large number of services are now available and there are many web-based
directories listing Internet radio and TV stations under various categories. These directories have to be maintained by
hand because the information cannot easily be collected automatically from web sites. The information these directories
provide is not easily extracted by web browsers and devices such as Internet Radios.

== Elements that come up often in practice ==
The metadata is either general information (e.g. station name) or technical information (e.g. bandwidth)

=== General information ===
* Station name (could use [[hcard|hCard]]'s "organization-unit")
* Broadcaster (could use hCard's "organization-name")
* Description (could also be hCard's "note")
* Image URL (logo) (could use hCard's "logo")
* Category (genre) (could use hCard's "category")
* Language (used by the station rather than for the description)
* Location (could use hCard's "adr" & children)
* Station website (could use hCard's "url")
* Station email (could use hCard's "e-mail")
* AM/FM frequency (could use "[[measure]]" microformat)
* Rating ([[hReview]]?)
* "Now playing" information (could use [[audio-info|hAudio]] and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]])
* Schedule information (could use [[hCalendar]])

=== Technical information ===
* stream URL - the direct URL of the stream (.wma, .ra, etc) or the stream's metafile (.asx, .ram, etc)
* player URL - the URL of a webpage with an embedded media player which plays the stream
* bandwidth (could use the "[[measure]]" microformat)
* codec (MIME types may be of use here)
* delivery - optional. unicast | multicast
* Band (FM/AM/SW/LW/MW/UHF/VHF - used by people generally when talking about radio or TV stations)

== Issues ==
* Some way is needed to distinguish between radio and TV stations (Most examples don't explicitly distinguish between them).

== Possible approaches ==

=== New microformat ===
Define a broadcast microformat.

As with hAudio we could consider splitting content information from format information i.e. define a stream format microformat:

* hStream ('''<code>hstream</code>''')
** '''type''' optional. MIME type using the "type" attribute of the <a> element
** '''bitrate''' optional. using [[measure]]
** '''delivery''' optional. unicast | multicast

Example:

<pre><nowiki>
<a class="hstream" type="audio/vnd.rn-realaudio" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/realaudio/media/r1live.ram">
Real Audio (<abbr class="bitrate hmeasure" title="196608 bit/s">192 Kbps</abbr>, <span class="delivery">multicast</span>)</a>
</nowiki></pre>
----
For television and radio stations we could have:
* '''broadcast''' (as an optional sub-property of [[hCard]] '''or''' [[hCalendar]])
** frequency (optional, for radio)
*** ''band'' (optional, SW/FM/LW/MW/AM/DAB/...)
*** ''value'' (either as a string e.g. 92MHz, or using [[measure]],)
*** ''low/high'' (to show a range)
** channel (for television)
*** ''band'' (optional, UHF/VHF/DVB-T/DVB-S/...)
*** ''value''
*** ''provider'' (optional: certainly required for digital TV where more than one provider can carry the same channel)
Examples:
* here's an example for a station in Brazil. It operates on FM and AM.
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
96.1<span class="band">FM</span>
</span>
<span class="frequency">
670<span class="band">AM</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>
and with [[measure]]:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">FM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">96.1</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="MegaHertz">MHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">AM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">670</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="kiloHertz">kHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a card for BBC One from another example, with broadcast information added:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<span class="organization-name">BBC</span> <span class="organization-unit">One</span>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freesat</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freeview</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Sky Digital</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Tiscali</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Virgin Media</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a possible example for a Brazilian television affiliate:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">TV Cultura do Amazonas</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Manaus</span>
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">VHF</span>: Channel <span class="value">2</span>
</span>
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">SDTVB</span>: Channel <span class="value">4</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* the <code>value</code> "hypo-property" (since it's lower than a sub-property!) can be used for stations with with more than one frequency: in this example the units are missing as FM implies a certain range of magnitude.

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<span class="value">102.4</span> and
<span class="value">103.5</span>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

but it would be easy to put the units in:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<abbr class="value measure" title="102.4 megaHertz">102.4</abbr> and
<abbr class="value measure" title="103.5 megaHertz">103.5</abbr>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

* a range:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/" class="url">BBC Radio 3</a>
</strong>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
<span class="low">90.2</span> - <span class="high">92.6</span>
<abbr class="band" title="Frequency Modulation broadcast">FM</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<span class="adr">
<span class="country-name">UK</span>
</span>
</div>
</source>

* shortwave radio frequencies can change according to the time of day: here's an example from the morning frequencies at Radio Australia:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vevent">
<strong class="summary">Morning</strong>
<span class="dtstart" value="9:00+08">9 a.m.</span> - <span class="dtend" value="12:00+08">midday</span>
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="value">9660</span>,
<span class="value">15230</span>,
<span class="value">15240</span>,
<span class="value">21725</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</source>
if you wanted to use hMeasure, this could be(?)
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">9660</span>,
<span class="num">15230</span>,
<span class="num">15240</span>,
<span class="num">21725</span>
<span class="unit">kHz</span>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</source>

=== Extend scope of hAudio and hVideo ===
Depending on the degree of overlap between the required metadata fields it may be practical to extend the scope of the proposed hAudio and hVideo microformats. However, it would not be beneficial to the development process, or to end-users, if this adds additional complexity.

=== Use RDF ===
The potential number of publishers of this information seems fairly small. (Broadcast licences aren't handed out like candy, but sold for enormous amounts of money to, in practice, a fairly small number of organisations.) Most of the publishers are going to be well-financed either by government or commercial interests, so are likely to have large web publishing teams of experienced designers, programmers and system administrators. The "newbie factor" is less relevant here, so the barrier to entry for RDF is lowered.

RDF is not a format, but a set of concepts which can be serialised in several standardised formats, including RDF/XML, eRDF, RDFa, Turtle, RDF/JSON, etc. An example of describing broadcast information using RDFa embedded in HTML is:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station">
<h1 property="tv:stationName"><span property="tv:broadcaster">BBC</span> One</h1>
<p property="tv:description">Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location">United Kingdom</span>.</p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url">http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/</a>.</p>
<p>View: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/</a>.</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This could easily be combined with hCard too:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station" class="vcard">
<div class="fn org">
<h1 property="tv:stationName" class="organization-unit">
<span property="tv:broadcaster" class="organization-name">BBC</span>
One
</h1>
</div>
<p property="tv:description" class="note adr">
Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location" class="country-name">United Kingdom</span>.
</p>
<p>
Link:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/
</a>.
</p>
<p>
View:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
</a>.
</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

Allowing specialist TV-station software to be able to parse the RDF information out, while naive generalist parsers would simply see an hCard, giving them access to most of the same information, but perhaps in lesser fidelity. That is, the RDF parser will understand that the thing being described is a TV station, whereas the hCard parser will only be able to identify that it's an organisation; the RDF parser will know which URL is intended for general information on the station and which is for viewing programmes, the hCard parser will simply see two URLs.

RDF (especially RDFa) offers a good general purpose solution for marking up this kind of specialist information - information which might be too specialised to justify its own microformat. It can easily be combined with microformats, as per the example above, offering a good hybrid solution.

== Combining with other microformats ==

Examples of how a broadcast microformat could be combined with other microformats.

== hAudio & hVideo ==
"Now Playing" information could be provided using [[audio-info|hAudio]] for radio (e.g. to represent the current song) and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]] (e.g. to represent the current film) for TV.

=== hCalendar ===
An event or a schedule of events for a channel could be signalled using [[hcalendar|vEvent or hCalendar]] as child elements.

=== hCard ===
Broadcaster / station details could be marked up with [[hcard|hCard]].

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<div class="organization-name">BBC</div>
<div class="organization-unit">One</div>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Measure ===
A proposed [[measure]]ment microformat could be used for the frequency.

=== hReview ===
Rating could be marked up using [[hReview]].

== Comments ==

The fields listed under technical information are common to the proposed but moribund [[file-format-examples|file microformat]] proposal.

== Related Pages ==
* [[broadcast-examples]]
* [[audio-info-examples]]
* [[video-info-examples]]
* [[media-info-examples]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T08:24:33Z

Epicurious: /* New microformat */

= Brainstorming for a Broadcast Microformat =

This is a brainstorm for Internet radio and TV streams i.e real-time streams corresponding to radio and TV stations rather than individual items or collections of content (as currently proposed for hAudio).

The scope could also encompass broadcast radio and TV if this is considered to be useful in an Internet context.

Examples can be found here [http://microformats.org/wiki/broadcast-examples broadcast-examples]

== Contributors ==
* [[User:ChrisNewell|Chris Newell]], BBC Research
* [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]

== The Problem ==
The web provides an alternative transmission medium for radio and TV stations, enabling these to reach a global audience.
New Internet-only services have also appeared. A large number of services are now available and there are many web-based
directories listing Internet radio and TV stations under various categories. These directories have to be maintained by
hand because the information cannot easily be collected automatically from web sites. The information these directories
provide is not easily extracted by web browsers and devices such as Internet Radios.

== Elements that come up often in practice ==
The metadata is either general information (e.g. station name) or technical information (e.g. bandwidth)

=== General information ===
* Station name (could use [[hcard|hCard]]'s "organization-unit")
* Broadcaster (could use hCard's "organization-name")
* Description (could also be hCard's "note")
* Image URL (logo) (could use hCard's "logo")
* Category (genre) (could use hCard's "category")
* Language (used by the station rather than for the description)
* Location (could use hCard's "adr" & children)
* Station website (could use hCard's "url")
* Station email (could use hCard's "e-mail")
* AM/FM frequency (could use "[[measure]]" microformat)
* Rating ([[hReview]]?)
* "Now playing" information (could use [[audio-info|hAudio]] and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]])
* Schedule information (could use [[hCalendar]])

=== Technical information ===
* stream URL - the direct URL of the stream (.wma, .ra, etc) or the stream's metafile (.asx, .ram, etc)
* player URL - the URL of a webpage with an embedded media player which plays the stream
* bandwidth (could use the "[[measure]]" microformat)
* codec (MIME types may be of use here)
* delivery - optional. unicast | multicast
* Band (FM/AM/SW/LW/MW/UHF/VHF - used by people generally when talking about radio or TV stations)

== Issues ==
* Some way is needed to distinguish between radio and TV stations (Most examples don't explicitly distinguish between them).

== Possible approaches ==

=== New microformat ===
Define a broadcast microformat.

As with hAudio we could consider splitting content information from format information i.e. define a stream format microformat:

* hStream ('''<code>hstream</code>''')
** '''type''' optional. MIME type using the "type" attribute of the <a> element
** '''bitrate''' optional. using [[measure]]
** '''delivery''' optional. unicast | multicast

Example:

<pre><nowiki>
<a class="hstream" type="audio/vnd.rn-realaudio" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/realaudio/media/r1live.ram">
Real Audio (<abbr class="bitrate hmeasure" title="196608 bit/s">192 Kbps</abbr>, <span class="delivery">multicast</span>)</a>
</nowiki></pre>
----
For television and radio stations we could have:
* '''broadcast''' (as an optional sub-property of [[hCard]] '''or''' [[hCalendar]])
** frequency (optional, for radio)
*** ''band'' (optional, SW/FM/LW/MW/AM/DAB/...)
*** ''value'' (either as a string e.g. 92MHz, or using [[measure]],)
*** ''low/high'' (to show a range)
** channel (for television)
*** ''band'' (optional, UHF/VHF/DVB-T/DVB-S/...)
*** ''value''
*** ''provider'' (optional: certainly required for digital TV where more than one provider can carry the same channel)
Examples:
* here's an example for a station in Brazil. It operates on FM and AM.
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
96.1<span class="band">FM</span>
</span>
<span class="frequency">
670<span class="band">AM</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>
and with [[measure]]:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">FM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">96.1</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="MegaHertz">MHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<div class="frequency">
<span class="band">AM</span>
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">670</span>
<abbr class="unit" title="kiloHertz">kHz</abbr>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a card for BBC One from another example, with broadcast information added:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<span class="organization-name">BBC</span> <span class="organization-unit">One</span>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freesat</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freeview</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Sky Digital</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Tiscali</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Virgin Media</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a possible example for a Brazilian television affiliate:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">TV Cultura do Amazonas</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Manaus</span>
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">VHF</span>: Channel <span class="value">2</span>
</span>
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">SDTVB</span>: Channel <span class="value">4</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* the <code>value</code> "hypo-property" (since it's lower than a sub-property!) can be used for stations with with more than one frequency: in this example the units are missing as FM implies a certain range of magnitude.

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<span class="value">102.4</span> and
<span class="value">103.5</span>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

but it would be easy to put the units in:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<abbr class="value measure" title="102.4 megaHertz">102.4</abbr> and
<abbr class="value measure" title="103.5 megaHertz">103.5</abbr>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

* a range:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/" class="url">BBC Radio 3</a>
</strong>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
<span class="low">90.2</span> - <span class="high">92.6</span>
<abbr class="band" title="Frequency Modulation broadcast">FM</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<span class="adr">
<span class="country-name">UK</span>
</span>
</div>
</source>

* shortwave radio frequencies can change according to the time of day: here's an example from the morning frequencies at Radio Australia:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vevent">
<strong class="summary">Morning</strong>
<span class="dtstart" value="9:00+08">9 a.m.</span> - <span class="dtend" value="12:00+08">midday</span>
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="value">9660</span>,
<span class="value">15230</span>,
<span class="value">15240</span>,
<span class="value">21725</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</source>
if you wanted to use hMeasure, this could be(?)
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">9660</span>,
<span class="num">15230</span>,
<span class="num">15240</span>,
<span class="num">21725</span>
<span class="unit">kHz</span>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</source>

=== Extend scope of hAudio and hVideo ===
Depending on the degree of overlap between the required metadata fields it may be practical to extend the scope of the proposed hAudio and hVideo microformats. However, it would not be beneficial to the development process, or to end-users, if this adds additional complexity.

=== Use RDF ===
The potential number of publishers of this information seems fairly small. (Broadcast licences aren't handed out like candy, but sold for enormous amounts of money to, in practice, a fairly small number of organisations.) Most of the publishers are going to be well-financed either by government or commercial interests, so are likely to have large web publishing teams of experienced designers, programmers and system administrators. The "newbie factor" is less relevant here, so the barrier to entry for RDF is lowered.

RDF is not a format, but a set of concepts which can be serialised in several standardised formats, including RDF/XML, eRDF, RDFa, Turtle, RDF/JSON, etc. An example of describing broadcast information using RDFa embedded in HTML is:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station">
<h1 property="tv:stationName"><span property="tv:broadcaster">BBC</span> One</h1>
<p property="tv:description">Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location">United Kingdom</span>.</p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url">http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/</a>.</p>
<p>View: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/</a>.</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This could easily be combined with hCard too:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station" class="vcard">
<div class="fn org">
<h1 property="tv:stationName" class="organization-unit">
<span property="tv:broadcaster" class="organization-name">BBC</span>
One
</h1>
</div>
<p property="tv:description" class="note adr">
Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location" class="country-name">United Kingdom</span>.
</p>
<p>
Link:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/
</a>.
</p>
<p>
View:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
</a>.
</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

Allowing specialist TV-station software to be able to parse the RDF information out, while naive generalist parsers would simply see an hCard, giving them access to most of the same information, but perhaps in lesser fidelity. That is, the RDF parser will understand that the thing being described is a TV station, whereas the hCard parser will only be able to identify that it's an organisation; the RDF parser will know which URL is intended for general information on the station and which is for viewing programmes, the hCard parser will simply see two URLs.

RDF (especially RDFa) offers a good general purpose solution for marking up this kind of specialist information - information which might be too specialised to justify its own microformat. It can easily be combined with microformats, as per the example above, offering a good hybrid solution.

== Combining with other microformats ==

Examples of how a broadcast microformat could be combined with other microformats.

== hAudio & hVideo ==
"Now Playing" information could be provided using [[audio-info|hAudio]] for radio (e.g. to represent the current song) and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]] (e.g. to represent the current film) for TV.

=== hCalendar ===
An event or a schedule of events for a channel could be signalled using [[hcalendar|vEvent or hCalendar]] as child elements.

=== hCard ===
Broadcaster / station details could be marked up with [[hcard|hCard]].

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<div class="organization-name">BBC</div>
<div class="organization-unit">One</div>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Measure ===
A proposed [[measure]]ment microformat could be used for the frequency.

=== hReview ===
Rating could be marked up using [[hReview]].

== Comments ==

The fields listed under technical information are common to the proposed but moribund [[file-format-examples|file microformat]] proposal.

== Related Pages ==
* [[broadcast-examples]]
* [[audio-info-examples]]
* [[video-info-examples]]
* [[media-info-examples]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T08:21:19Z

Epicurious: /* New microformat */

= Brainstorming for a Broadcast Microformat =

This is a brainstorm for Internet radio and TV streams i.e real-time streams corresponding to radio and TV stations rather than individual items or collections of content (as currently proposed for hAudio).

The scope could also encompass broadcast radio and TV if this is considered to be useful in an Internet context.

Examples can be found here [http://microformats.org/wiki/broadcast-examples broadcast-examples]

== Contributors ==
* [[User:ChrisNewell|Chris Newell]], BBC Research
* [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]

== The Problem ==
The web provides an alternative transmission medium for radio and TV stations, enabling these to reach a global audience.
New Internet-only services have also appeared. A large number of services are now available and there are many web-based
directories listing Internet radio and TV stations under various categories. These directories have to be maintained by
hand because the information cannot easily be collected automatically from web sites. The information these directories
provide is not easily extracted by web browsers and devices such as Internet Radios.

== Elements that come up often in practice ==
The metadata is either general information (e.g. station name) or technical information (e.g. bandwidth)

=== General information ===
* Station name (could use [[hcard|hCard]]'s "organization-unit")
* Broadcaster (could use hCard's "organization-name")
* Description (could also be hCard's "note")
* Image URL (logo) (could use hCard's "logo")
* Category (genre) (could use hCard's "category")
* Language (used by the station rather than for the description)
* Location (could use hCard's "adr" & children)
* Station website (could use hCard's "url")
* Station email (could use hCard's "e-mail")
* AM/FM frequency (could use "[[measure]]" microformat)
* Rating ([[hReview]]?)
* "Now playing" information (could use [[audio-info|hAudio]] and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]])
* Schedule information (could use [[hCalendar]])

=== Technical information ===
* stream URL - the direct URL of the stream (.wma, .ra, etc) or the stream's metafile (.asx, .ram, etc)
* player URL - the URL of a webpage with an embedded media player which plays the stream
* bandwidth (could use the "[[measure]]" microformat)
* codec (MIME types may be of use here)
* delivery - optional. unicast | multicast
* Band (FM/AM/SW/LW/MW/UHF/VHF - used by people generally when talking about radio or TV stations)

== Issues ==
* Some way is needed to distinguish between radio and TV stations (Most examples don't explicitly distinguish between them).

== Possible approaches ==

=== New microformat ===
Define a broadcast microformat.

As with hAudio we could consider splitting content information from format information i.e. define a stream format microformat:

* hStream ('''<code>hstream</code>''')
** '''type''' optional. MIME type using the "type" attribute of the <a> element
** '''bitrate''' optional. using [[measure]]
** '''delivery''' optional. unicast | multicast

Example:

<pre><nowiki>
<a class="hstream" type="audio/vnd.rn-realaudio" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/realaudio/media/r1live.ram">
Real Audio (<abbr class="bitrate hmeasure" title="196608 bit/s">192 Kbps</abbr>, <span class="delivery">multicast</span>)</a>
</nowiki></pre>
----
For television and radio stations we could have:
* '''broadcast''' (as an optional sub-property of [[hCard]] '''or''' [[hCalendar]])
** frequency (optional, for radio)
*** ''band'' (optional, SW/FM/LW/MW/AM/DAB/...)
*** ''value'' (either as a string e.g. 92MHz, or using [[measure]],)
*** ''low/high'' (to show a range)
** channel (for television)
*** ''band'' (optional, UHF/VHF/DVB-T/DVB-S/...)
*** ''value''
*** ''provider'' (optional: certainly required for digital TV where more than one provider can carry the same channel)
Examples:
* here's an example for a station in Brazil. It operates on FM and AM.
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
96.1<span class="band">FM</span>
</span>
<span class="frequency">
670<span class="band">AM</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>
* This is a card for BBC One from another example, with broadcast information added:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<span class="organization-name">BBC</span> <span class="organization-unit">One</span>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freesat</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freeview</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Sky Digital</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Tiscali</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Virgin Media</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a possible example for a Brazilian television affiliate:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">TV Cultura do Amazonas</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Manaus</span>
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">VHF</span>: Channel <span class="value">2</span>
</span>
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">SDTVB</span>: Channel <span class="value">4</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* the <code>value</code> "hypo-property" (since it's lower than a sub-property!) can be used for stations with with more than one frequency: in this example the units are missing as FM implies a certain range of magnitude.

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<span class="value">102.4</span> and
<span class="value">103.5</span>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

but it would be easy to put the units in:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<abbr class="value measure" title="102.4 megaHertz">102.4</abbr> and
<abbr class="value measure" title="103.5 megaHertz">103.5</abbr>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

* a range:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/" class="url">BBC Radio 3</a>
</strong>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
<span class="low">90.2</span> - <span class="high">92.6</span>
<abbr class="band" title="Frequency Modulation broadcast">FM</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<span class="adr">
<span class="country-name">UK</span>
</span>
</div>
</source>

* shortwave radio frequencies can change according to the time of day: here's an example from the morning frequencies at Radio Australia:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vevent">
<strong class="summary">Morning</strong>
<span class="dtstart" value="9:00+08">9 a.m.</span> - <span class="dtend" value="12:00+08">midday</span>
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="value">9660</span>,
<span class="value">15230</span>,
<span class="value">15240</span>,
<span class="value">21725</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</source>
if you wanted to use hMeasure, this could be(?)
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">9660</span>,
<span class="num">15230</span>,
<span class="num">15240</span>,
<span class="num">21725</span>
<span class="unit">kHz</span>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</source>

=== Extend scope of hAudio and hVideo ===
Depending on the degree of overlap between the required metadata fields it may be practical to extend the scope of the proposed hAudio and hVideo microformats. However, it would not be beneficial to the development process, or to end-users, if this adds additional complexity.

=== Use RDF ===
The potential number of publishers of this information seems fairly small. (Broadcast licences aren't handed out like candy, but sold for enormous amounts of money to, in practice, a fairly small number of organisations.) Most of the publishers are going to be well-financed either by government or commercial interests, so are likely to have large web publishing teams of experienced designers, programmers and system administrators. The "newbie factor" is less relevant here, so the barrier to entry for RDF is lowered.

RDF is not a format, but a set of concepts which can be serialised in several standardised formats, including RDF/XML, eRDF, RDFa, Turtle, RDF/JSON, etc. An example of describing broadcast information using RDFa embedded in HTML is:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station">
<h1 property="tv:stationName"><span property="tv:broadcaster">BBC</span> One</h1>
<p property="tv:description">Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location">United Kingdom</span>.</p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url">http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/</a>.</p>
<p>View: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/</a>.</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This could easily be combined with hCard too:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station" class="vcard">
<div class="fn org">
<h1 property="tv:stationName" class="organization-unit">
<span property="tv:broadcaster" class="organization-name">BBC</span>
One
</h1>
</div>
<p property="tv:description" class="note adr">
Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location" class="country-name">United Kingdom</span>.
</p>
<p>
Link:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/
</a>.
</p>
<p>
View:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
</a>.
</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

Allowing specialist TV-station software to be able to parse the RDF information out, while naive generalist parsers would simply see an hCard, giving them access to most of the same information, but perhaps in lesser fidelity. That is, the RDF parser will understand that the thing being described is a TV station, whereas the hCard parser will only be able to identify that it's an organisation; the RDF parser will know which URL is intended for general information on the station and which is for viewing programmes, the hCard parser will simply see two URLs.

RDF (especially RDFa) offers a good general purpose solution for marking up this kind of specialist information - information which might be too specialised to justify its own microformat. It can easily be combined with microformats, as per the example above, offering a good hybrid solution.

== Combining with other microformats ==

Examples of how a broadcast microformat could be combined with other microformats.

== hAudio & hVideo ==
"Now Playing" information could be provided using [[audio-info|hAudio]] for radio (e.g. to represent the current song) and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]] (e.g. to represent the current film) for TV.

=== hCalendar ===
An event or a schedule of events for a channel could be signalled using [[hcalendar|vEvent or hCalendar]] as child elements.

=== hCard ===
Broadcaster / station details could be marked up with [[hcard|hCard]].

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<div class="organization-name">BBC</div>
<div class="organization-unit">One</div>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Measure ===
A proposed [[measure]]ment microformat could be used for the frequency.

=== hReview ===
Rating could be marked up using [[hReview]].

== Comments ==

The fields listed under technical information are common to the proposed but moribund [[file-format-examples|file microformat]] proposal.

== Related Pages ==
* [[broadcast-examples]]
* [[audio-info-examples]]
* [[video-info-examples]]
* [[media-info-examples]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T08:20:23Z

Epicurious: /* New microformat */

= Brainstorming for a Broadcast Microformat =

This is a brainstorm for Internet radio and TV streams i.e real-time streams corresponding to radio and TV stations rather than individual items or collections of content (as currently proposed for hAudio).

The scope could also encompass broadcast radio and TV if this is considered to be useful in an Internet context.

Examples can be found here [http://microformats.org/wiki/broadcast-examples broadcast-examples]

== Contributors ==
* [[User:ChrisNewell|Chris Newell]], BBC Research
* [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]]

== The Problem ==
The web provides an alternative transmission medium for radio and TV stations, enabling these to reach a global audience.
New Internet-only services have also appeared. A large number of services are now available and there are many web-based
directories listing Internet radio and TV stations under various categories. These directories have to be maintained by
hand because the information cannot easily be collected automatically from web sites. The information these directories
provide is not easily extracted by web browsers and devices such as Internet Radios.

== Elements that come up often in practice ==
The metadata is either general information (e.g. station name) or technical information (e.g. bandwidth)

=== General information ===
* Station name (could use [[hcard|hCard]]'s "organization-unit")
* Broadcaster (could use hCard's "organization-name")
* Description (could also be hCard's "note")
* Image URL (logo) (could use hCard's "logo")
* Category (genre) (could use hCard's "category")
* Language (used by the station rather than for the description)
* Location (could use hCard's "adr" & children)
* Station website (could use hCard's "url")
* Station email (could use hCard's "e-mail")
* AM/FM frequency (could use "[[measure]]" microformat)
* Rating ([[hReview]]?)
* "Now playing" information (could use [[audio-info|hAudio]] and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]])
* Schedule information (could use [[hCalendar]])

=== Technical information ===
* stream URL - the direct URL of the stream (.wma, .ra, etc) or the stream's metafile (.asx, .ram, etc)
* player URL - the URL of a webpage with an embedded media player which plays the stream
* bandwidth (could use the "[[measure]]" microformat)
* codec (MIME types may be of use here)
* delivery - optional. unicast | multicast
* Band (FM/AM/SW/LW/MW/UHF/VHF - used by people generally when talking about radio or TV stations)

== Issues ==
* Some way is needed to distinguish between radio and TV stations (Most examples don't explicitly distinguish between them).

== Possible approaches ==

=== New microformat ===
Define a broadcast microformat.

As with hAudio we could consider splitting content information from format information i.e. define a stream format microformat:

* hStream ('''<code>hstream</code>''')
** '''type''' optional. MIME type using the "type" attribute of the <a> element
** '''bitrate''' optional. using [[measure]]
** '''delivery''' optional. unicast | multicast

Example:

<pre><nowiki>
<a class="hstream" type="audio/vnd.rn-realaudio" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/realaudio/media/r1live.ram">
Real Audio (<abbr class="bitrate hmeasure" title="196608 bit/s">192 Kbps</abbr>, <span class="delivery">multicast</span>)</a>
</nowiki></pre>
----
For television and radio stations we could have:
* '''broadcast''' (as an optional sub-property of [[hCard]] '''or''' [[hCalendar]])
** frequency (optional, for radio)
*** ''band'' (optional, SW/FM/LW/MW/AM/DAB/...)
*** ''value'' (either as a string e.g. 92MHz, or using [[measure]],)
*** ''low/high'' (to show a range)
** channel (for television)
*** ''band'' (optional, UHF/VHF/DVB-T/DVB-S/...)
*** ''value''
*** ''provider'' (optional: certainly required for digital TV where more than one provider can carry the same channel)
Examples:
* here's an example for a station in Brazil. It operates on FM and AM.
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">Rádio Nacional do Alto Solimões</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
96.1<span class="band">FM</span>
</span>
<span class="frequency">
670<span class="band">AM</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>
* This is a card for BBC One from another example, with broadcast information added:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<span class="organization-name">BBC</span> <span class="organization-unit">One</span>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freesat</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Freeview</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Sky Digital</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Tiscali</span> channel <span class="value">1</span>
</div>
<div class="channel">
<span class="provider">Virgin Media</span> channel <span class="value">101</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* This is a possible example for a Brazilian television affiliate:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">TV Cultura do Amazonas</strong>
<div class="adr">
<span class="locality">Manaus</span>
<span class="region">Amazonas</span>
<span class="country-name">Brazil</span>
</div>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">VHF</span>: Channel <span class="value">2</span>
</span>
<span class="channel">
<span class="band">SDTVB</span>: Channel <span class="value">4</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</source>

* the <code>value</code> "hypo-property" (since it's lower than a sub-property!) can be used for stations with with more than one frequency: in this example the units are missing as FM implies a certain range of magnitude.

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<span class="value">102.4</span> and
<span class="value">103.5</span>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

but it would be easy to put the units in:

<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<b class="fn org">Heart Radio in Sussex</b>
<div class="broadcast">
<i class="frequency">
<abbr class="value measure" title="102.4 megaHertz">102.4</abbr> and
<abbr class="value measure" title="103.5 megaHertz">103.5</abbr>
<span class="band">FM</span>
</i>
</div>
(<abbr title="50.9761;0.2293" class="geo">Eastbourne</abbr>)
</div>
</source>

* a range:
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vcard">
<strong class="fn org">
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/" class="url">BBC Radio 3</a>
</strong>
<div class="broadcast">
<span class="frequency">
<span class="low">90.2</span> - <span class="high">92.6</span>
<abbr class="band" title="Frequency Modulation broadcast">FM</abbr>
</span>
</div>
<span class="adr">
<span class="country-name">UK</span>
</span>
</div>
</source>

* shortwave radio frequencies can change according to the time of day: here's an example from the morning frequencies at [[http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/waystolisten/australia.htm Radio Australia ]]
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="vevent">
<strong class="summary">Morning</strong>
<span class="dtstart" value="9:00+08">9 a.m.</span> - <span class="dtend" value="12:00+08">midday</span>
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="value">9660</span>,
<span class="value">15230</span>,
<span class="value">15240</span>,
<span class="value">21725</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</source>
if you wanted to use hMeasure, this could be(?)
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="broadcast">
<p class="frequency">
<span class="band">SW</span>:
<span class="measure">
<span class="num">9660</span>,
<span class="num">15230</span>,
<span class="num">15240</span>,
<span class="num">21725</span>
<span class="unit">kHz</span>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</source>

=== Extend scope of hAudio and hVideo ===
Depending on the degree of overlap between the required metadata fields it may be practical to extend the scope of the proposed hAudio and hVideo microformats. However, it would not be beneficial to the development process, or to end-users, if this adds additional complexity.

=== Use RDF ===
The potential number of publishers of this information seems fairly small. (Broadcast licences aren't handed out like candy, but sold for enormous amounts of money to, in practice, a fairly small number of organisations.) Most of the publishers are going to be well-financed either by government or commercial interests, so are likely to have large web publishing teams of experienced designers, programmers and system administrators. The "newbie factor" is less relevant here, so the barrier to entry for RDF is lowered.

RDF is not a format, but a set of concepts which can be serialised in several standardised formats, including RDF/XML, eRDF, RDFa, Turtle, RDF/JSON, etc. An example of describing broadcast information using RDFa embedded in HTML is:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station">
<h1 property="tv:stationName"><span property="tv:broadcaster">BBC</span> One</h1>
<p property="tv:description">Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location">United Kingdom</span>.</p>
<p>Link: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url">http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/</a>.</p>
<p>View: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/</a>.</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This could easily be combined with hCard too:

<pre><nowiki>
<div xmlns:tv="http://example.com/schema/tv#" typeof="tv:Station" class="vcard">
<div class="fn org">
<h1 property="tv:stationName" class="organization-unit">
<span property="tv:broadcaster" class="organization-name">BBC</span>
One
</h1>
</div>
<p property="tv:description" class="note adr">
Public service broadcaster based in the
<span property="tv:location" class="country-name">United Kingdom</span>.
</p>
<p>
Link:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/" rel="tv:url" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/
</a>.
</p>
<p>
View:
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/" rel="tv:playerUrl" class="url">
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
</a>.
</p>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

Allowing specialist TV-station software to be able to parse the RDF information out, while naive generalist parsers would simply see an hCard, giving them access to most of the same information, but perhaps in lesser fidelity. That is, the RDF parser will understand that the thing being described is a TV station, whereas the hCard parser will only be able to identify that it's an organisation; the RDF parser will know which URL is intended for general information on the station and which is for viewing programmes, the hCard parser will simply see two URLs.

RDF (especially RDFa) offers a good general purpose solution for marking up this kind of specialist information - information which might be too specialised to justify its own microformat. It can easily be combined with microformats, as per the example above, offering a good hybrid solution.

== Combining with other microformats ==

Examples of how a broadcast microformat could be combined with other microformats.

== hAudio & hVideo ==
"Now Playing" information could be provided using [[audio-info|hAudio]] for radio (e.g. to represent the current song) and [[video-info-examples|hVideo]] (e.g. to represent the current film) for TV.

=== hCalendar ===
An event or a schedule of events for a channel could be signalled using [[hcalendar|vEvent or hCalendar]] as child elements.

=== hCard ===
Broadcaster / station details could be marked up with [[hcard|hCard]].

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<div class="org fn">
<div class="organization-name">BBC</div>
<div class="organization-unit">One</div>
</div>
<div class="country-name">UK</div>
</div>
<div class="category"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed" rel="tag">Mixed</a></div>
<img class="logo" src="http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/res/images/BBCOne_small.gif"
alt="BBC One" />
<a class="url" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/">BBC One Homepage</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

=== Measure ===
A proposed [[measure]]ment microformat could be used for the frequency.

=== hReview ===
Rating could be marked up using [[hReview]].

== Comments ==

The fields listed under technical information are common to the proposed but moribund [[file-format-examples|file microformat]] proposal.

== Related Pages ==
* [[broadcast-examples]]
* [[audio-info-examples]]
* [[video-info-examples]]
* [[media-info-examples]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T07:44:22Z

Epicurious: /* Technical information */

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T07:44:01Z

Epicurious: /* General information */

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T07:43:25Z

Epicurious: /* New microformat */

microdata

2010-08-18T07:21:42Z

Epicurious: /* microformats in microdata */ Correcting HTML5

<entry-title>microdata</entry-title>

<dfn style="font-style:italic;font-weight:bold">microdata</dfn> is an extension to [[HTML5]] that provides another way to embed [[microformats]] and [[poshformats]] vocabularies.

Specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/

== summary ==
microdata consists of a set of attribute extensions to [[HTML5]]:

* <code>itemprop</code> attribute is a more specific version of <code>class</code>, for field names
* <del><code>subject</code> attribute allows semantically linking within the page. Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].</del>
* <code>itemref</code> attribute allows including properties elsewhere on the page that are not descendants of <code>itemscope</code>. Takes space-separated ids (for example <code>itemref="address phone"</code> would include the elements with <code>id="address"</code> and <code>id="phone"</code>). Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].
* <code>content</code> attribute on the <code>meta</code> element can be used to include invisible data that is not part of the content. As current browsers move <code>meta</code> inside <code><head></code>, make sure to include via <code>itemref</code>. Conceptually similar to the 'value-title' feature of the [[value-class-pattern]].
* <code>itemscope</code> attribute identifies blocks to be marked as structured data. Conceptually similar to the [[mfo]] brainstorming.
* <code>itemtype</code> attribute to specify the type for an item (for example: <code><nowiki>itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard"</nowiki></code>)

For common semantics on the web (e.g. [[hcard|people+organizations]], [[hcalendar|events]], [[hreview|reviews]], [[hatom|syndicated content]]), [[microformats]] are still simpler and easier than [[microdata]], and are already well implemented across numerous tools and services.

For uncommon, rare, experimental, or one-off semantics, [[microdata]] offers a simpler and easier to understand solution than alternatives that use [[namespaces]] like XML/RDF/RDFa. Developers should consider [[microdata]] as another way of expressing semantics that they may otherwise use [[poshformats]] for.

== history ==
microdata didn't happen overnight. Much of the design and simplicity of microdata is based on years of work on microformats [[principles]] deliberately designed to help guide and create simpler, more usable and accessible solutions. It happened so quickly because Ian Hickson designed microdata based upon years of work by both the microformats community, and the concept of using reverse-domain-names as unique qualifiers (popularized perhaps by Java programming language naming conventions).

== potential ==
I think there are some very clever ideas in general purpose microdata, it has a lot of potential, and despite being a bit more abstract than microformats, still much simpler/easier to explain to web designers/developers/programmers than any form of RDF.

General microdata may be the right solution to the general purpose data representation problem that microformats specifically chose not to work on.

- [[User:Tantek|Tantek]] 17:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

== microdata vocabularies ==
Separate from the [[microdata]] specification, there are a number of microdata vocabularies, based on microformats and previous formats like vCard and iCalendar.

=== microdata vCard vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvcard/</nowiki>, the microdata vCard vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vcard part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCard]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcard-faq|hCard FAQ]] and
** [[hcard-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcard-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCard 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCard will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vCard vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCard, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the vCard RFC. as well.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabularies ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Person/ Person] and [http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Organization/ Organization]), which are also forks of hCard/vCard, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata vEvent vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvevent/</nowiki>, the microdata vEvent vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vevent part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCalendar]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcalendar-faq|hCalendar FAQ]] and
** [[hcalendar-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcalendar-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCalendar 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCalendar will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vEvent vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCalendar's vevent root class name and applicable properties, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the iCalendar RFC.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabulary ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Event/ Event]), which is also a fork of hCalendar/iCalendar, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata Licensing Works vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdwork/</nowiki>, the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#licensing-works part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

The [[licensing]] microformat work provides a potential microformat alternative to the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary.

Please see: [[licensing-brainstorming]] and provide feedback.

== microformats in microdata ==
For those that are ok with going with an [[HTML5]] only solution, it may be interesting to consider and document a consistent way to use microformats and microformats vocabulary in microdata.

A possible simple implementation could look like this:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Corey Mwamba</title>
</head>
<body>
<section itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard" itemscope>
<h1 itemprop="fn">Corey Mwamba</h1>
<div itemprop="adr">
<p itemprop="street-address">56 Nowhere Road</p>
<p itemprop="locality">Nowhere</p>
<p itemprop="postal-code">NO1 6QT</p>
</div>
<a href="http://www.coreymwamba.co.uk/" itemprop="url">My web site</a>
</section>
</body>
</html>
</source>

And here's an simple hCalendar example:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Web 2.0 Conference</title>
</head>
<body>
<div itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar" itemscope>
<a itemprop="url" href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html">
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
</a>
<span itemprop="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:
<time itemprop="dtstart" datetime="2005-10-05">October 5</time>-
<time itemprop="dtend" datetime="2005-10-07">7</time>,
at the <span itemprop="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>
</body>
</html>
</source>

The advantage is that no major re-wiring in thinking is required to adjust real-world usage - but would parsers be able to deal with the change? And in fact, would this require a recasting of microformats themselves? --[[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]] 19:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

== alternatives ==
Since the introduction of [[XMDP]], web authors have been able to define their specific uses of rel attribute values and class names.

(needs expansion with examples)
...

== see also ==
* [[HTML5]]
* [[poshformats]]
* [[principles]]
* [[XMDP]]

broadcast-brainstorming

2010-08-18T05:10:29Z

Epicurious: /* General information */

microdata

2010-08-18T03:00:00Z

Epicurious: /* microformats in microdata */

<entry-title>microdata</entry-title>

<dfn style="font-style:italic;font-weight:bold">microdata</dfn> is an extension to [[HTML5]] that provides another way to embed [[microformats]] and [[poshformats]] vocabularies.

Specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/

== summary ==
microdata consists of a set of attribute extensions to [[HTML5]]:

* <code>itemprop</code> attribute is a more specific version of <code>class</code>, for field names
* <del><code>subject</code> attribute allows semantically linking within the page. Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].</del>
* <code>itemref</code> attribute allows including properties elsewhere on the page that are not descendants of <code>itemscope</code>. Takes space-separated ids (for example <code>itemref="address phone"</code> would include the elements with <code>id="address"</code> and <code>id="phone"</code>). Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].
* <code>content</code> attribute on the <code>meta</code> element can be used to include invisible data that is not part of the content. As current browsers move <code>meta</code> inside <code><head></code>, make sure to include via <code>itemref</code>. Conceptually similar to the 'value-title' feature of the [[value-class-pattern]].
* <code>itemscope</code> attribute identifies blocks to be marked as structured data. Conceptually similar to the [[mfo]] brainstorming.
* <code>itemtype</code> attribute to specify the type for an item (for example: <code><nowiki>itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard"</nowiki></code>)

For common semantics on the web (e.g. [[hcard|people+organizations]], [[hcalendar|events]], [[hreview|reviews]], [[hatom|syndicated content]]), [[microformats]] are still simpler and easier than [[microdata]], and are already well implemented across numerous tools and services.

For uncommon, rare, experimental, or one-off semantics, [[microdata]] offers a simpler and easier to understand solution than alternatives that use [[namespaces]] like XML/RDF/RDFa. Developers should consider [[microdata]] as another way of expressing semantics that they may otherwise use [[poshformats]] for.

== history ==
microdata didn't happen overnight. Much of the design and simplicity of microdata is based on years of work on microformats [[principles]] deliberately designed to help guide and create simpler, more usable and accessible solutions. It happened so quickly because Ian Hickson designed microdata based upon years of work by both the microformats community, and the concept of using reverse-domain-names as unique qualifiers (popularized perhaps by Java programming language naming conventions).

== potential ==
I think there are some very clever ideas in general purpose microdata, it has a lot of potential, and despite being a bit more abstract than microformats, still much simpler/easier to explain to web designers/developers/programmers than any form of RDF.

General microdata may be the right solution to the general purpose data representation problem that microformats specifically chose not to work on.

- [[User:Tantek|Tantek]] 17:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

== microdata vocabularies ==
Separate from the [[microdata]] specification, there are a number of microdata vocabularies, based on microformats and previous formats like vCard and iCalendar.

=== microdata vCard vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvcard/</nowiki>, the microdata vCard vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vcard part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCard]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcard-faq|hCard FAQ]] and
** [[hcard-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcard-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCard 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCard will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vCard vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCard, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the vCard RFC. as well.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabularies ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Person/ Person] and [http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Organization/ Organization]), which are also forks of hCard/vCard, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata vEvent vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvevent/</nowiki>, the microdata vEvent vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vevent part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCalendar]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcalendar-faq|hCalendar FAQ]] and
** [[hcalendar-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcalendar-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCalendar 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCalendar will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vEvent vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCalendar's vevent root class name and applicable properties, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the iCalendar RFC.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabulary ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Event/ Event]), which is also a fork of hCalendar/iCalendar, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata Licensing Works vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdwork/</nowiki>, the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#licensing-works part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

The [[licensing]] microformat work provides a potential microformat alternative to the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary.

Please see: [[licensing-brainstorming]] and provide feedback.

== microformats in microdata ==
For those that are ok with going with an [[HTML5]] only solution, it may be interesting to consider and document a consistent way to use microformats and microformats vocabulary in microdata.

A possible simple implementation could look like this:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Corey Mwamba</title>
</head>
<body>
<section item="vcard" itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard" itemscope>
<h1 itemprop="fn">Corey Mwamba</h1>
<div itemprop="adr">
<p itemprop="street-address">56 Nowhere Road</p>
<p itemprop="locality">Nowhere</p>
<p itemprop="postal-code">NO1 6QT</p>
</div>
<a href="http://www.coreymwamba.co.uk/" itemprop="url">My web site</a>
</section>
</body>
</html>
</source>

And here's an simple hCalendar example:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Web 2.0 Conference</title>
</head>
<body>
<div item="vevent" itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar" itemscope>
<a itemprop="url" href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html">
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
</a>
<span itemprop="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:
<time itemprop="dtstart" datetime="2005-10-05">October 5</time>-
<time itemprop="dtend" datetime="2005-10-07">7</time>,
at the <span itemprop="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>
</body>
</html>
</source>

The advantage is that no major re-wiring in thinking is required to adjust real-world usage - but would parsers be able to deal with the change? And in fact, would this require a recasting of microformats themselves? --[[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]] 19:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

== alternatives ==
Since the introduction of [[XMDP]], web authors have been able to define their specific uses of rel attribute values and class names.

(needs expansion with examples)
...

== see also ==
* [[HTML5]]
* [[poshformats]]
* [[principles]]
* [[XMDP]]

microdata

2010-08-16T19:16:26Z

Epicurious: /* microformats in microdata */

<entry-title>microdata</entry-title>

<dfn style="font-style:italic;font-weight:bold">microdata</dfn> is an extension to [[HTML5]] that provides another way to embed [[microformats]] and [[poshformats]] vocabularies.

Specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/

== summary ==
microdata consists of a set of attribute extensions to [[HTML5]]:

* <code>itemprop</code> attribute is a more specific version of <code>class</code>, for field names
* <del><code>subject</code> attribute allows semantically linking within the page. Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].</del>
* <code>itemref</code> attribute allows including properties elsewhere on the page that are not descendants of <code>itemscope</code>. Takes space-separated ids (for example <code>itemref="address phone"</code> would include the elements with <code>id="address"</code> and <code>id="phone"</code>). Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].
* <code>content</code> attribute on the <code>meta</code> element can be used to include invisible data that is not part of the content. As current browsers move <code>meta</code> inside <code><head></code>, make sure to include via <code>itemref</code>. Conceptually similar to the 'value-title' feature of the [[value-class-pattern]].
* <code>itemscope</code> attribute identifies blocks to be marked as structured data. Conceptually similar to the [[mfo]] brainstorming.
* <code>itemtype</code> attribute to specify the type for an item (for example: <code><nowiki>itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard"</nowiki></code>)

For common semantics on the web (e.g. [[hcard|people+organizations]], [[hcalendar|events]], [[hreview|reviews]], [[hatom|syndicated content]]), [[microformats]] are still simpler and easier than [[microdata]], and are already well implemented across numerous tools and services.

For uncommon, rare, experimental, or one-off semantics, [[microdata]] offers a simpler and easier to understand solution than alternatives that use [[namespaces]] like XML/RDF/RDFa. Developers should consider [[microdata]] as another way of expressing semantics that they may otherwise use [[poshformats]] for.

== history ==
microdata didn't happen overnight. Much of the design and simplicity of microdata is based on years of work on microformats [[principles]] deliberately designed to help guide and create simpler, more usable and accessible solutions. It happened so quickly because Ian Hickson designed microdata based upon years of work by both the microformats community, and the concept of using reverse-domain-names as unique qualifiers (popularized perhaps by Java programming language naming conventions).

== potential ==
I think there are some very clever ideas in general purpose microdata, it has a lot of potential, and despite being a bit more abstract than microformats, still much simpler/easier to explain to web designers/developers/programmers than any form of RDF.

General microdata may be the right solution to the general purpose data representation problem that microformats specifically chose not to work on.

- [[User:Tantek|Tantek]] 17:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

== microdata vocabularies ==
Separate from the [[microdata]] specification, there are a number of microdata vocabularies, based on microformats and previous formats like vCard and iCalendar.

=== microdata vCard vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvcard/</nowiki>, the microdata vCard vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vcard part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCard]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcard-faq|hCard FAQ]] and
** [[hcard-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcard-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCard 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCard will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vCard vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCard, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the vCard RFC. as well.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabularies ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Person/ Person] and [http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Organization/ Organization]), which are also forks of hCard/vCard, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata vEvent vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvevent/</nowiki>, the microdata vEvent vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vevent part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCalendar]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcalendar-faq|hCalendar FAQ]] and
** [[hcalendar-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcalendar-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCalendar 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCalendar will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vEvent vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCalendar's vevent root class name and applicable properties, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the iCalendar RFC.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabulary ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Event/ Event]), which is also a fork of hCalendar/iCalendar, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata Licensing Works vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdwork/</nowiki>, the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#licensing-works part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

The [[licensing]] microformat work provides a potential microformat alternative to the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary.

Please see: [[licensing-brainstorming]] and provide feedback.

== microformats in microdata ==
For those that are ok with going with an [[HTML5]] only solution, it may be interesting to consider and document a consistent way to use microformats and microformats vocabulary in microdata.

A possible simple implementation could look like this:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Corey Mwamba</title>
</head>
<body>
<section item="vcard" itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard" itemscope>
<h1 itemprop="fn">Corey Mwamba</h1>
<div itemprop="adr">
<p itemprop="street-address">56 Nowhere Road</p>
<p itemprop="locality">Nowhere</p>
<p itemprop="postal-code">NO1 6QT</p>
</div>
<a href="http://www.coreymwamba.co.uk/" itemprop="url">My web site</a>
</section>
</body>
</html>
</source>

And here's an simple hCalendar example:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Web 2.0 Conference</title>
</head>
<body>
<div item="vevent" itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar" itemscope>
<a itemprop="url" href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html">
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
</a>
<span itemprop="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:
<time itemprop="dtstart" title="2005-10-05">October 5</time>-
<time itemprop="dtend" title="2005-10-07">7</time>,
at the <span itemprop="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>
</body>
</html>
</source>

The advantage is that no major re-wiring in thinking is required to adjust real-world usage - but would parsers be able to deal with the change? And in fact, would this require a recasting of microformats themselves? --[[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]] 19:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

== alternatives ==
Since the introduction of [[XMDP]], web authors have been able to define their specific uses of rel attribute values and class names.

(needs expansion with examples)
...

== see also ==
* [[HTML5]]
* [[poshformats]]
* [[principles]]
* [[XMDP]]

microdata

2010-08-16T19:01:30Z

Epicurious: /* microformats in microdata */ Examples added

<entry-title>microdata</entry-title>

<dfn style="font-style:italic;font-weight:bold">microdata</dfn> is an extension to [[HTML5]] that provides another way to embed [[microformats]] and [[poshformats]] vocabularies.

Specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/

== summary ==
microdata consists of a set of attribute extensions to [[HTML5]]:

* <code>itemprop</code> attribute is a more specific version of <code>class</code>, for field names
* <del><code>subject</code> attribute allows semantically linking within the page. Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].</del>
* <code>itemref</code> attribute allows including properties elsewhere on the page that are not descendants of <code>itemscope</code>. Takes space-separated ids (for example <code>itemref="address phone"</code> would include the elements with <code>id="address"</code> and <code>id="phone"</code>). Conceptually similar to the [[include-pattern]].
* <code>content</code> attribute on the <code>meta</code> element can be used to include invisible data that is not part of the content. As current browsers move <code>meta</code> inside <code><head></code>, make sure to include via <code>itemref</code>. Conceptually similar to the 'value-title' feature of the [[value-class-pattern]].
* <code>itemscope</code> attribute identifies blocks to be marked as structured data. Conceptually similar to the [[mfo]] brainstorming.
* <code>itemtype</code> attribute to specify the type for an item (for example: <code><nowiki>itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard"</nowiki></code>)

For common semantics on the web (e.g. [[hcard|people+organizations]], [[hcalendar|events]], [[hreview|reviews]], [[hatom|syndicated content]]), [[microformats]] are still simpler and easier than [[microdata]], and are already well implemented across numerous tools and services.

For uncommon, rare, experimental, or one-off semantics, [[microdata]] offers a simpler and easier to understand solution than alternatives that use [[namespaces]] like XML/RDF/RDFa. Developers should consider [[microdata]] as another way of expressing semantics that they may otherwise use [[poshformats]] for.

== history ==
microdata didn't happen overnight. Much of the design and simplicity of microdata is based on years of work on microformats [[principles]] deliberately designed to help guide and create simpler, more usable and accessible solutions. It happened so quickly because Ian Hickson designed microdata based upon years of work by both the microformats community, and the concept of using reverse-domain-names as unique qualifiers (popularized perhaps by Java programming language naming conventions).

== potential ==
I think there are some very clever ideas in general purpose microdata, it has a lot of potential, and despite being a bit more abstract than microformats, still much simpler/easier to explain to web designers/developers/programmers than any form of RDF.

General microdata may be the right solution to the general purpose data representation problem that microformats specifically chose not to work on.

- [[User:Tantek|Tantek]] 17:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

== microdata vocabularies ==
Separate from the [[microdata]] specification, there are a number of microdata vocabularies, based on microformats and previous formats like vCard and iCalendar.

=== microdata vCard vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvcard/</nowiki>, the microdata vCard vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vcard part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCard]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcard-faq|hCard FAQ]] and
** [[hcard-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcard-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCard 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCard will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vCard vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCard, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the vCard RFC. as well.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabularies ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Person/ Person] and [http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Organization/ Organization]), which are also forks of hCard/vCard, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata vEvent vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdvevent/</nowiki>, the microdata vEvent vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#vevent part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

* Recommendation: use [[hCalendar]] directly instead, taking into account:
** the [[hcalendar-faq|hCalendar FAQ]] and
** [[hcalendar-issues-resolved|resolved]]+[[hcalendar-issues-closed|closed issues]].

hCalendar 1.0.1 (under development) is incorporating these errata.

Using hCalendar will produce Google Rich Snippets, as well as work with [[yahoo-search]], and [[Firefox]] [[Operator]] and other tools.

Note:
* Avoid the "microdata vEvent vocabulary" as in many ways it is an out-of-date fork/snapshot of hCalendar's vevent root class name and applicable properties, even though portions of it appear to based directly on the iCalendar RFC.
* Avoid Google’s Rich Snippets vocabulary ([http://www.data-vocabulary.org/Event/ Event]), which is also a fork of hCalendar/iCalendar, and are only implemented by Google currently.

=== microdata Licensing Works vocabulary ===
Formerly documented as a separate specification at <nowiki>http://dev.w3.org/html5/mdwork/</nowiki>, the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary is currently available as [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/links.html#licensing-works part of WHATWG additions to HTML5].

The [[licensing]] microformat work provides a potential microformat alternative to the microdata Licensing Works vocabulary.

Please see: [[licensing-brainstorming]] and provide feedback.

== microformats in microdata ==
For those that are ok with going with an [[HTML5]] only solution, it may be interesting to consider and document a consistent way to use microformats and microformats vocabulary in microdata.

A possible simple implementation could look like this:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Corey Mwamba</title>
</head>
<body>
<section item="vcard" itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard" itemscope>
<h1 itemprop="fn">Corey Mwamba</h1>
<div itemprop="adr">
<p itemprop="street-address">56 Nowhere Road</p>
<p itemprop="locality">Nowhere</p>
<p itemprop="postal-code">NO1 6QT</p>
</div>
<a href="http://www.coreymwamba.co.uk/" itemprop="url">My web site</a>
</section>
</body>
</html>
</source>

And here's an simple hCalendar example:

<source lang="html4strict">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Web 2.0 Conference</title>
</head>
<body>
<div item="vevent" itemtype="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar" itemscope>
<a itemprop="url" href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html">
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
</a>
<span itemprop="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:
<time itemprop="dtstart" title="2005-10-05">October 5</time>-
<time itemprop="dtend" title="2005-10-07">7</time>,
at the <span itemprop="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>
</body>
</html>
</source>

The advantage is that no major re-wiring in thinking is required to adjust real-world usage - but would parsers be able to deal with the change? - --[[User:Epicurious|Epicurious]] 19:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

== alternatives ==
Since the introduction of [[XMDP]], web authors have been able to define their specific uses of rel attribute values and class names.

(needs expansion with examples)
...

== see also ==
* [[HTML5]]
* [[poshformats]]
* [[principles]]
* [[XMDP]]

User:Epicurious

2010-07-24T04:38:08Z

Epicurious:

I'm a musician and composer. I'm using hCard and hCalendar on my [http://www.coreymwamba.co.uk/gigs/ gigs page], and hAudio on my shop page; and am excited to see/test any tools can be created to use microformats!

User:Epicurious

2010-07-24T04:35:21Z

Epicurious: New page: I'm a musician and composer. I'm using hCard and hCalendar on my gigs page, and hAudio on my shop page; and am excited to see/test any tools can be created to use microformats!

I'm a musician and composer. I'm using hCard and hCalendar on my gigs page, and hAudio on my shop page; and am excited to see/test any tools can be created to use microformats!

irc-people

2010-07-24T04:31:18Z

Epicurious:

A list of [[irc|IRC]] regulars, sorted by nick, and their normal timezones (winter/summer).

* {{irc user|Amodal1| amodal1|-0500/-0600}}
* {{irc user|Adam Ballai|AdamBallai|-700/-700}}
* {{irc user|Adam Craven|AdamCraven|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Alenonimo|Alenonimo|-0300}}
* {{irc user|Alexander Graf|AlexanderGraf|+0100}}
* {{irc user|Axelator|ax|-0700}}
* {{irc user|Tomasino|aloneone|-0500}}
* {{irc user|AmanuelTewolde|Amanuel|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Amette|amette|+1000}}
* {{irc user|Amir Guindehi|AmirGuindehi|+1000}}
* {{irc user|Andr3|andr3|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Ajaswa|Andrew Jaswa|-0500}}
* {{irc user|AndrewDisley|AndrewDisley|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Andrii Ponomarov|Andrii|+0300}}
* {{irc user|AngeloGladding|angelogladding|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|AnselHalliburton|anselxyz|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Ashe Dryden|Ashe|-600}}
* {{irc user|Atamido|Atamido|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|Barce|Barce|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Azathoth|Florian Beer|+1000}}
* {{irc user|Tyler Roehmholdt|Baristo|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Belling|Belling|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|BenjaminCarlyle|BenjaminCarlyle|+1000}}
* {{irc user|HenriBergius|bergie|+0200/+0300}}
* {{irc user|Ben Ward|BenWard|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|BenWest|bewest|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|B.K._DeLong|bkdelong|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Robert|blueace|+0100}}
* {{irc user|Robert|blueace|+0100}}
* {{irc user|BluesMoon|bluesmoon|+0530}}
* {{irc user|BobChao|BobChao|+0800}}
* {{irc user|Bob Jonkman|BobJonkman|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Oli|boblet|+0900}}
* {{irc user|Boneill|boneill|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Brian|briansuda|+0000}}
* {{irc user|TimT|bringo|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Briski|Briski|+0000}}
* {{irc user|BryanL|BryanL|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|BryanRieger|Bryan Rieger|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Bug-E|Bug-E|+0200}}
* {{irc user|CarlaHufstedler|carlamagpie|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Colin_Barrett|cbarrett|-1000}}
* {{irc user|Cognizance|Cognizance|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|ColinDDevroe|cdevroe|-0500/-0600}}
* {{irc user|CoryGwin|corygwin|-0500/-0600}}
* {{irc user|Cgriego|cgriego|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|Charlvn|Charl|+0200/+0200}}
* {{irc user|CharlesRoper|charles_r|0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Chris_Cressman|Chris Cressman|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|ChristopherStJohn|cks|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|JeremyBoggs|clioweb|-5000/-4000}}
* {{irc user|Cloud|Cloud|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Cruster|cruster|+0200}}
* {{irc user|Csarven|csarven|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|ChrisBrentano|ctb|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|DanC|DanC|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|DanielBurka|DanielBurka|-0400}}
* {{irc user|DanielJohnLewis|danieljohnlewis|0000}}
* {{irc user|DannyAyers|danja|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|Dave Cardwell|davecardwell|+0000}}
* {{irc user|DavidMead|DavidMead|-0400}}
* {{irc user|DavidRussell|davidrussell|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|DBounds|Darren Bounds|-0500}}
* {{irc user|Ddonat|David Gratton|-0800/-700}}
* {{irc user|DenisDefreyne|ddfreyne|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|DeanEro|deanero|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|DeepText|Deep Text|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|DerrickPallas|DerrickPallas|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|DimitriGlazkov|dglazkov|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|DiegoBudny|DiegoBudny|<small>-unspecified-</small>}}
* {{irc user|DKerzman|DKerzman|-0600}}
* {{irc user|Dan Kubb|dkubb|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Dreamisle|dreamisle|-0500}}
* {{irc user|DrErnie|DrErnie|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|DrewMcLellan|drewinthehead|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|DrewBell|droob|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|DimitriosZachariadis|dzach|+0200/+0300}}
* {{irc user|Ed Summers|edsu|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Enric|Enric|-0800/-0700}} (alt sp "enric")
* {{irc user|Evan|evanpro|-0500}}
* {{irc user|Evan|e_s_p|-0500}}
* {{irc user|Ket Majmudar|ethicaljunction|+0100}}
* {{irc user|EdwardWelker|ewelker|-0500}}
* {{irc user|ChrisMessina|factoryjoe|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Fil|Fil|+0200}}
* {{irc user|CFinke|Finke|-0700/-0600}}
* {{irc user|MarkoMrdjenovic|friedcell|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|GarethR|garethr|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|GeorgeBrock|georgebrock|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Grantbow|Grantbow|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Griffin|Griffin|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|Guillaume Lebleu|glebleu|-0800}}
* {{irc user|Aubergine10|Guy Fraser|+0100/+0000}}
* {{irc user|HenrichPoehls|HenrichP|+0100}}
* {{irc user|IanHickson|Hixie|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Hlb|hlb|+0800-0700}}
* {{irc user|EdwardOConnor|hober|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Ichigo|ichigo|+1000}}
* {{irc user|Alper|illustir|+0100}}
* {{irc user|Inkbase|inkbase|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|IwaiMasaharu|iwaim|+0900}}
* {{irc user|Izo|IZO|<small>-unspecified-</small>}}
* {{irc user|Jabz|Jabz|+0000}}
* {{irc user|JamieKnight|JamieKnight|+1000/0000}}
* {{irc user|JayMyers|jaymyers|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|JoeGregorio|jcgregorio|<small>-unspecified-</small>}}
* {{irc user|WizardIsHungry|jcw9|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Adactio|Jeremy Keith|+0000}}
* {{irc user|jrodgers|JesseRodgers|-0500}}
* {{irc user|JasonK|jkridner|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|JeffMcNeill|jeffmcneill|-1000}}
* {{irc user|JimboJW|jimbojw|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|Jonathan_Arkell|jonnay|-0700/0600}}
* {{irc user|JonathanMalek|JonathanMalek|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|JosephHolsten|josephholsten|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|JulianStahnke|julianstahnke|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Kapowaz|kapowaz|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Keri Henare|kerihenare|+1200}}
* {{irc user|KevBurnsJr|kevburnsjr|-0800}}
* [http://epeus.blogspot.com/ KevinMarks] (-0800/-0700)
* {{irc user|RyanKing|kingryan|-0800/-0700}}
** [http://theryanking.com/blog/archives/2006/04/19/office-hours/ Office hours]: Wednesday, 21:00 UTC
* {{irc user|Lachlan Hunt|Lachy|+1000/+1100}}
* {{irc user|Levitation|levitation[A]|+0200/+0300}}
* {{irc user|Linmic|linmic|+0800-0700}}
* {{irc user|MarkNg|madness|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Mark Mansour|Mark Mansour|+1100}}
* {{irc user|MarkNormanFrancis|Mark Norman Francis|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Maddiin|Martin Czura|+0100}}
* {{irc user|MattBowen|Matt Bowen|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Groningen|Matthias Kluth|+0100}}
* {{irc user|MattisManzel|Mattis Manzel|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|CiaranMc|McNulty|+0000/+0100}}
* <span class="vcard"><span class="fn org">[[mfbot]]</span> - a bot which logs all edits to this wiki. It appends a number with a '+' or '-' sign, to indicate the number of characters added or removed as a result of the edit.</span>
* {{irc user|MicroAngelo|MicroAngelo|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Mike|Michael McCracken(mmc)|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|MikeKaply|mkaply|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|SteveIvy|monkinetic/redmonk|-0700}}
* {{irc user|MWTE|mwte|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|RobManson|nambor|+1000}}
* {{irc user|Naterkane|Nater Kane|-0500}}
* {{irc user|Nelix|nelix|+1000}}
* {{irc user|neuro|neuro|<small>-unspecified-</small>}}
* {{irc user|Niekie|niekie|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|NTollervey|ntoll|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Pawlik|pawlik|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|Andy Pemberton|pembertona|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Phae|Phae|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|pius|Pius Uzamere|+0500}}
* {{irc user|PriitLaes|plaes|+0200/+0300}}
* {{irc user|ChrisCasciano|pnhChris|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Hugopeixoto|Politoed|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|PetarPopov|popov|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Pfefferle|pfefferle|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|Lauren Scime|pseudowish|-0800/-700}}
* {{irc user|DavidOsolkowski|qid|-0500}}
* {{irc user|RCanine|RCanine|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Remi|Remi|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|ZachCarter|riah|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|RobertBachmann|RobertBachmann|+0100/+0200}}
** Office hours: <s>Wednesday, 18:00-20:00 UTC</s> (Currently no office hours}}
* {{irc user|RobLinton|RobLinton|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Ronnos|Ron Kok|+0000}}
* {{irc user|SamJohnston|samj|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|SarahWorsham|sazbean|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|ScottNelle|snelle|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|ScottRozic|gravitas|-0500/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Dana Benson|Snowden|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|SinDoc|SinDoc|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|Savell Martin|Savell|+0000/+0000}}
* {{irc user|Smackman|Steve Farrell|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|SpikeUK|SpikeUK|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Steve Ganz|SteveGanz|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Stii|Stii|+0200 GMT}}
* {{irc user|ReinierZ|surial|+0100 GMT}}
* {{irc user|SuperPhly|SuperPhly|-600/-500}}
* {{irc user|SyedSRahman|syedsrahman|+0530}}
* <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">sym[[User:LynX|lynX]]</span></span> or (better) [[User:LynX|lynX]] on [http://about.psyc.eu PSYC] (+0100}}
* {{irc user|DavidLehn|taaz|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Tantek|Tantek|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|tbmartin|tbmartin|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|themattharris|themattharris|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Wojciech|theanxy|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|TheJbf|thejbf|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|Thomasknoll|thomasknoll|-0800}}
* {{irc user|thuddwhirr|thuddwhirr|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|TobyInk|tobyink|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|Trovster|trovster|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Vadania|vadania|-0600/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Vant|vant|+0900}}
* {{irc user|venkateswaran|vensilver|+5.30 GMT}}
* {{irc user|Victor|victor|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|V-I-P|V-I-P|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|KrissWatt|VoodooChild|+0000/+0100}}
* {{irc user|WebOrganics|weborganics|+0100}}
* {{irc user|JacksonWilkinson|whafro|-0500/-0400}}
* {{irc user|Richard Conyard|WhiskeyM|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Veeliam|William Lawrence|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|StevenWoods|woodss|+0000 GMT}}
* {{irc user|Ianloic|yakk|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|LarsStrojny|mastaYoda|+0100}}
* {{irc user|ZimbaTm|zimbatm|+0100}}
* {{irc user|FoundAtion|Foundation|-0800}}
* {{irc user|PJKix|pjkix|-0800/-700}}
* {{irc user| ChrisBroadfoot|broady|+1000}}
* {{irc user|Natalie Downe|NatBat|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Dotjay|dotjay|+0000}}
* {{irc user|PeterHellberg|zil|+0100}}
* {{irc user|Kiryl Zhybul|zkv|+0400}}
* {{irc user|ScottThorpe|Salve|-0800/-0700}}
* {{irc user|Dane|imdane|-0600/-0500}}
* {{irc user|ThomasLoertsch|tl|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|Francisco Bernardo|frantic0|+0100/+0200}}
* {{irc user|Steven Osborn|steve918|-0700/-0800}}
* {{irc user|Trodrigues|trodrigues|+0000}}
* {{irc user|Epicurious|epicurious|+0000/+0100}}