Commentary by Mark Wahl, CISA
Documenting microformats processes (20080203)
The first book I've seen on microformats is Microformats: empowering your markup for Web 2.0 by John Allsopp, published last year.
The bulk of the book walks through examples of applying many of the existing microformat specification guideliness to annotate typical web page HTML (as shown in a sample chapter provided by the publisher on the GEO and ADR microformats). One strength of the book is in describing the use of microformats to drive the use of CSS for visual layout of elements. However, some limitations lurk below the surface.
Adding metadata structure to a web site should be driven by value it provides to the intended consumers of that metadata, in making the site easier to locate, navigate or access.
In particular, as with the other web 2.0 technologies, microformats are still in their deployment infancy, and for many of the microformat specifications there are few tools which generate them, and fewer sites that make effective use of them. As microformats.org exhorts the guideline of humans first and machines second
, it can be difficult to show the value of adding microformat-defined markup to existing HTML content when there are hardly any machine readers which would make use of that content.
Secondly, early in the book, the author points out the wide proliferation of identifier names, used across on web sites in HTML elements which relate the elements to CSS style definitions, as a motivation for microformats. However, this proliferation also could indicate that there is a broad potential for additional models beyond those described by the existing microformat specifications covered in this book. Unfortunately, the book only provides a few pages of advice on the process of creating a new microformat specification. To me, this part of microformat process can be the most confusing for someone who is focused on industry-specific content.