Microformat

From Wikipedia:Microformat : A microformat is a web-based approach to semantic markup that seeks to re-use existing XHTML and HTML tags to convey metadata and other attributes. This approach allows information intended for end-users (such as contact information, geographic coordinates, calendar events, and the like) to also be automatically processed by software.

Although the content of web pages is technically already capable of "automated processing," and has been since the inception of the web, such processing is difficult because the traditional markup tags used to display information on the web do not describe what the information means. Microformats are intended to bridge this gap by attaching semantics, and thereby obviate other, more complicated methods of automated processing, such as natural language processing or screen scraping. The use, adoption and processing of microformats enables data items to be indexed, searched for, saved or cross-referenced, so that information can be reused or combined.

Microformats relevant to TWiki

• HCalendarMicroformat
• HCardMicroformat
• GIFT

Resources:

• http://microformats.org/ - Microformat resource page
• Wikipedia:Microformat - on Wikipedia
• http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Microformats/36123201464 - on Facebook

-- Contributors: PeterThoeny - 23 Aug 2008

Discussion

Interesting microformats that can potentially used/created by TWiki applications are Wikipedia:HCalendar for events and Wikipedia:HCard for contact info.

-- PeterThoeny - 23 Aug 2008