Microformats and the Semanitc Web
Today was interesting, there was a bit of sparing going on between the Semantic Web and Microformats. While all in good fun, it did make me think a lot about perceptions.
It felt like even though it had clearly been said that Microformats was better presented and marketed, people still wanted it to be ‘better’ than Semantic Web technology. The technology arguments mostly melted away in a sea of perceptions and confusion.
The solution that Tom Morris and I have decided to pursue is a very siloed version of the Semantic Web. We aim to remove a lot of the stigma associated with Semantic Web complexity by choosing a small subset to work with. It’s been said that Microformats does 80% of cases, well we want to make an RDF based equivalent covering those same cases.
Our solution will require some serious branding. I thought the name Macroformats might work quite nicely. However we have also banned any names based on acronyms from being involved. Other than that lots of sexy logos Web 2.0 and rounded corners so add some ‘bling’. We plan to limit the scope to simple cases that are easy to use and apply. This will make the concepts very accessible. This isn’t different from Microformats, it’s just doing the same thing in a way which opens it up with the power of RDF.
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barcamp, barcamplondon, barcamplondon2, semanticweb, microformats, macroformats
February 19th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
After consulting with various people in the microformats community, I’ve been convinced that macroformats is not a good name. I’m just trying to think of a better one. Ian Forrester has also produced a great graphic to illustrate exactly what is going on with this.
February 19th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
If you don’t know about GRDDL (which could be used to translate microformat data to RDF) and RDFa (which to the unitiated looks similar to microformats-style markup (but is actually quite different) and may be used for arbitrary data, covering the other 20% (or whatever)).
February 19th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Err, if you don’t know … see http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl-primer/ and http://rdfa.info
February 19th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I think the main thing I personally have against using GRDDL, is that traditionally data translation is never used. There is a plenty of XML data that could be turned into triples, but syncing and converting becomes a headache so people don’t bother.
I think that eRDF or another similar solution is already so close to Microformats that the jump is worth it. The Semantic Web community just has to make some tools which prove the point in a meaningful non-nerdy way.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I think good points have been made on both sides. as was said in the chat, all we are ALL running towards is a more semantic web. how we get there, doesn’t really matter.
Jamie & lion