by Rusty Swayne 29.November 2007 01:52
"microformats" have been formally around for a little over two years (albeit the hCard markup was becoming somewhat prevalent in 2005) but recently I have noticed that they really seem to be "getting their legs" so to speak.
What is a microformat?
Wikipedia's definition:
"A microformat (sometimes abbreviated µF or uF) is a web-based data formatting approach that seeks to re-use existing content as metadata, using only XHTML and HTML classes and attributes. This approach is intended to allow information intended for end-users (such as contact information, geographic coordinates, calendar events, and the like) to also be automatically processed by software."
While I throw my chips to the microformat proponent side of the table, I did not simply jump on the band wagon as they seem to get mixed reviews from various web designer/developer groups. I have spent quite a bit of time reading on the subject and discussing the concepts with a few of my colleagues at Mindfly.
Generalizing, it has been my experience that the majority of naysayers seem to be those who have never heard of microformats, those who are not comfortable with XHTML and CSS 2.0, or those who simply don’t see the point in using them.
Obviously the last point is the only one to address, and my best response is why not?
Microformats are very easy to implement, they simply require the designer to pay closer attention to the website content and a little discipline. As web designers, we are already using CSS classes to style content so why not use the class names specified and the various microformat html constructs? There are even cheat sheets available Brian Suda Microformats Cheatsheet PDF.
There is an extension for Mozilla Firefox called Operator which can detect some of the more common microformats within a document and use them in various ways. Why not take advantage of it?
Sites like Flickr, Technorati, and Twitter seem to be incorporating them in some form or another and one of my favorite web designers, Dan Cederholm (SimpleBits), runs a site named cork’d that has uses microformats quite heavily. Just yesterday SitePoint.com had an article Portable Social Networks: Take Your Friends with you which included discussion about several microformats.
Simply put, with as many people and sites that are hyping microformats (and being that they are really the ones pushing the next generation of website innovations) Why not follow suit?