exactly!
sure the idea of using css class names to represent something for a machine to read is not new as it is an obvious one.
I thought of it too when I first saw CSS used just like I thought of using made-up tags to represent things when I first saw html... but THAT IS NOT THE POINT -
- the STANDARDISATION, the fact that LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY STARTING TO USE IT, and the SIMPLICITY is what makes microformats interesting -
For someone like me who has been looking for many years for ways to make it easy for an events promoter to provide machine readable data for a nightlife listings website ( www.spraci.com ) without needing to provide them with special software and then having to teach them how to use it, its an exciting thing!
Sure the preferred way to add an event is to use the forms on the site -
but not all promoters have the time to do it and some may already have their events listed on their own sites - why should they have to enter the same data over and over to get it listed on a few listings sites?... see the problem?
You might ask "what about RSS?".. think about it...
Events listings are calendar data - they need DATES... plain old rss does not do that....
(unless you use extended versions like RSS+Event - but not much software out there uses that - so that inevitably means people need to modify their software - not much good for most event promoters!)
spraci.com and many other listings sites require event dates to be seperate and machine-readable
because people can look up events by date.
"What about iCal?"
Is there a way to represent cities/countries/etc in iCal?
Listings sites that deal with more than one city need that kind of information.
If you use hCalendar you can combine it with hCard to specify the city/country!
For some of us who have been trying to get data syndication of this kind happening for years and having to deal with a lack of standards and software using them that is suitable for the average event promoter to use I see microformats as a very good thing.
1. they are easy for people to understand and use without needing to spend hours reading documentation to figure out the basics of what it does... a simple example is almost self-explanatory
2. not hard to parse with very basic xml/html/etc tools - you don't need anything exotic or overly bloated.
3. lots of people are actually already using it - that is pretty rapid uptake!
(what use is a "standard" if nobody is using it?)
4. it is actally trying to addresses the real world situation in a real world way.
- html is everywhere
- people want to create and consume data feeds containing data not handled well by plain old rss
- people also want to embed data in other places where they might be using html
- people want the minimum of installing or modifying software to do it - they want it NOW with a minimum of fuss
- there might be more than one item to be represented on one page (that pretty much rules out using meta)
- it tries to work with other existing standards where possible (eg hCalendar is based on iCal / hCard is based on vCard)
yes do check out http://microformats.org/wiki/...and if you are still not sure check out some of the links on there to other sites using microformats for more real-world examples.
its also easy to remember for anyone who has dealt with iCal data...
the names used in hCalendar are basically lower case versions of the equivalent iCal names and are used for the same things - so that makes it easier to convert from hCal to iCal and vice-versa
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>This is not to be encouraged.
so if you had your way we wouldn't have search engines like google, etc either?
exactly! sure the idea of using css class names to represent something for a machine to read is not new as it is an obvious one. I thought of it too when I first saw CSS used just like I thought of using made-up tags to represent things when I first saw html ... but THAT IS NOT THE POINT -
- the STANDARDISATION, the fact that LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY STARTING TO USE IT, and the SIMPLICITY is what makes microformats interesting -
For someone like me who has been looking for many years for ways to make it easy for an events promoter to provide machine readable data for a nightlife listings website ( www.spraci.com ) without needing to provide them with special software and then having to teach them how to use it, its an exciting thing!
Sure the preferred way to add an event is to use the forms on the site -
but not all promoters have the time to do it and some may already have their events listed on their own sites - why should they have to enter the same data over and over to get it listed on a few listings sites? ... see the problem?
You might ask "what about RSS?" .. think about it ...
Events listings are calendar data - they need DATES ... plain old rss does not do that ....
(unless you use extended versions like RSS+Event - but not much software out there uses that - so that inevitably means people need to modify their software - not much good for most event promoters!)
spraci.com and many other listings sites require event dates to be seperate and machine-readable
because people can look up events by date.
"What about iCal?"
Is there a way to represent cities/countries/etc in iCal?
Listings sites that deal with more than one city need that kind of information.
If you use hCalendar you can combine it with hCard to specify the city/country!
For some of us who have been trying to get data syndication of this kind happening for years and having to deal with a lack of standards and software using them that is suitable for the average event promoter to use I see microformats as a very good thing.
1. they are easy for people to understand and use without needing to spend hours reading documentation to figure out the basics of what it does... a simple example is almost self-explanatory
2. not hard to parse with very basic xml/html/etc tools - you don't need anything exotic or overly bloated.
3. lots of people are actually already using it - that is pretty rapid uptake!
(what use is a "standard" if nobody is using it?)
4. it is actally trying to addresses the real world situation in a real world way.
- html is everywhere
- people want to create and consume data feeds containing data not handled well by plain old rss
- people also want to embed data in other places where they might be using html
- people want the minimum of installing or modifying software to do it - they want it NOW with a minimum of fuss
- there might be more than one item to be represented on one page (that pretty much rules out using meta)
- it tries to work with other existing standards where possible (eg hCalendar is based on iCal / hCard is based on vCard)
yes do check out http://microformats.org/wiki/ ...and if you are still not sure check out some of the links on there to other sites using microformats for more real-world examples.
its also easy to remember for anyone who has dealt with iCal data... the names used in hCalendar are basically lower case versions of the equivalent iCal names and are used for the same things - so that makes it easier to convert from hCal to iCal and vice-versa