So Microformats are old news, right? You’ve probably been hearing about them for over a year now and most likely know someone who is wild about them.
I’ve come across a few people that don’t see the benefits of using Microformats and think it’s just some geek speak. They are right! Microformats are pretty geeky and the benefits are not ones to get revved up about, at least for now. Microformats are very young, but have a lot of potential. Just last week Microformats turned two years old and within its short existence many people and sites have adopted these standards, including: Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Upcoming, Yahoo, and a bunch of personal blogs.
How do I feel about Microformats?
Well, maybe the title of this post expresses my feelings. The growth of Microformats are very similar to the development of RSS, which was invented back in the late nineties. It took a good 5+ years for RSS to become a house hold term. Today, it seems like every site I visit has a little orange RSS button. Will Microformats develop like RSS did?
My presumption is that Microformats will continue to evolve from geek speak to a more useful technology. It will probably be a few years before all popular browsers have full support. Browser companies are now starting to see the benefits, notably Firefox and Flock. I also believe operating systems will catch on and adopt Microformats.
Firefox3 Microformats Features
I took a peek at the Firefox 3 PRD and there seems to be some great Microformat support in the pipeline. Micheal Kaply, the official support for Microformats development at Mozilla, notes that these features should be taken with a grain of salt. I think these features would be a huge advancement. Below are the Firefox/Feature Brainstorming features:
Data and Microformat Detection: Detect phone numbers, FedEx tracking numbers, AIM screen names, etc.
Microformat Actions: Contextual menu actions.
Microformat Collection and Storage: Data normalized to a universal schema and added to a local data store.
Microformat Visualization: Mechanisms to search, browses, and visualize micro-formatted content.
Microformat Sharing: Easy way to share data with others
Microformat Backup and Synchronization: Back-up the local data store
Microformats Resources
Pocket Cheat Sheet http://erincaton.ca/media/cheatsheetHandout.pdf
Icons http://microformats.org/wiki/icons
Presentations http://microformats.org/wiki/presentations
More Info http://microformats.org/about/, http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page
Technorati Tags: Microformats, Firefox 3
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3 Comments
On Monday, July 16, 2007 at 5:24:pm
Hey Doug, good write up on microformats! I’ve been semi-active in the community for almost a year now and there are a ton of folks working to refine existing microformats and come up with new formats (and uses for existing formats).
If you (or any of you readers out there) are interested in getting involved, subscribe to one of the mailing lists at:
http://microformats.org/discuss/
On Monday, July 16, 2007 at 6:39:pm
Great write-up! I had some similar thoughts a little over a year ago.
Microformats – should I be focused on tomorrow’s technology today?
I predicted that it wouldn’t be until 2008 that we saw any sort of mass-adoption; I thought I was being over cautious, but it could be even longer from the looks of things; if ever.
Still extremely excited about the potential!
On Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 12:52:pm
I recently wrote about Microformats in my blog entry on Semantic Focus. Moving Towards the Semantic Web: Grassroots vs. Ivory Towers
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