Microformats

Nishikant P TaksandeSchool of Electronics and Computer Science

University of Southampton

For Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), at Present Around The World (PATW) competition, Southampton, UK

ContentsBackgroundIntroductionWhy Microformats?TypesImplementationMicroformats-aware applicationsConclusionsEvolution

Background

Introduction

“Designed for human first and machine second, microformats are a set of simple, open data format build upon existing and widely adopted standards.” -Microformats.org

Introduction…

Microformats adds semantics to web pagesSmart contentMeaningful markup

http://www.flickr.com/photos/veerles-blog/172851392/

Why Microformats ?

Separate file format for machine-readable information, however powerful, may not succeed simply because it uses another file [3]

Utilizing established standards to add semantics is the preferred way

Writers with some knowledge of HTML can add semantic information to web page like calendar events (hCalendar) and contact information (hCard).

Evolution

vCalendar

RDFCalendar

hCalendar

vCalendar

BEGIN: VCALENDERBEGIN: VEVENTSUMMARY: Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge: Inside the Mind of WatsonDTSTART: 20111201T170000ZLOCATION: Turner simsDTEND: 20111201T190000ZDESCRIPTION: How Watson works at a high level with examples from the show.END: VEVENTEND: VCALENDAR

RDFCalendar

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf='http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/ical#'> <Vcalendar> <prodid>-//kanzaki.com//RDFCal 1.0//EN</prodid> <version>2.0</version> <method>PUBLISH</method> <component> <Vevent> <dtstart rdf:parseType='Resource'> <dateTime>2011-12-01T17:00:00</dateTime> <tzid>Asia/Tokyo</tzid> </dtstart> <dtend rdf:parseType='Resource'> <dateTime>2011-12-01T19:00:00</dateTime> <tzid>Asia/Tokyo</tzid> </dtend> <summary>Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge: Inside the Mind of Watson</summary> <description>How Watson works at a high level with examples from the show.</description> <dtstamp>20111130T104917Z</dtstamp> <uid>1322650157245@kanzaki.com</uid> </Vevent> </component> <component> <Vtimezone> <tzid>Asia/Tokyo</tzid> <standard rdf:parseType='Resource'> <dtstart rdf:parseType='Resource'> <dateTime>1970-01-01T00:00:00</dateTime> </dtstart> <tzoffsetfrom>+0900</tzoffsetfrom> <tzoffsetto>+0900</tzoffsetto> <tzname>JST</tzname> </standard> </Vtimezone> </component> </Vcalendar></rdf:RDF>

<a href=”/egFile.vcs”><b>Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge: Inside the Mind of Watson</b><p> How Watson works at a high level with examples from the show</p><small>December 1st, 2011, 5-7PM in the<i>Turner sims</i></small></a> hCalendar

<div class=”vcalendar vevent”><span class=”summary”> Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge: Inside the Mind of Watson </span><p class=”decription”> How Watson works at a high level with examples from the show.</p><abbr class=”dtstart” title=”20111201T170000Z”> December 1st, 2011, 5-</abbr> <abbr class=”dtend” title=”20111201T190000Z”>7PM</abbr> in the <span class=”location”>Turner sims</span></div>

<div class=”vcalendar vevent”><span class=”summary”> Jeopardy! The IBM Challenge: Inside the Mind of Watson </span><p class=”decription”> How Watson works at a high level with examples from the show.</p><abbr class=”dtstart” title=”20111201T170000Z”> December 1st, 2011, 5-</abbr> <abbr class=”dtend” title=”20111201T190000Z”>7PM</abbr> in the <span class=”location”>Turner sims</span></div>

TypesMicroformats

rel-licenseXFNrel-nofollowVoteLinks

Elemental Microformats

Compound Microformats

hCardhCalendarhReviewxFolk

hReview

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/6245/chicken-chicken-curry.aspx

<div class="hreview"><span class="item"> <a class="url fn"

href="http://www.example.com><a>Title</a></span> <div

class="description"><p> Some description

</p></div> (<abbr class="rating" title="5">*****</abbr>) <p

class="reviewer vcard">Review by <a class="url fn"

href="http://website.com/blog/">Name</a>, <abbr class="dtreviewed"

title="2012-02">February 2012</abbr> </p> </div>

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Implementation

Microformats-aware applications

Operator plug-in for Firefox

Oomph plug-in for IE

Conclusions

Microformats are not new language

Microformats use HTML and XHTML power to create machine readable information in simpler way

Clever use of css class which serves the purpose of styling and providing semantic information at one place

References

[1] K. Stolley, "Using Microformats: Gateway to the Semantic Web," IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, vol.52, no.3, pp.291-302, Sept. 2009. 

[2] R. Khare,   "Microformats: The next (small) thing on the semantic web?",  IEEE Internet Comput.,  vol. 10,  p.68 , 2006.

[3] R. Khare and T. C elik. Microformats: a pragmatic path to the semantic web (Poster). Proceedings of the 15th international conference on World Wide Web, pages 865-866, 2006.

Questions

Microformats

Thank You

Microformats