Microformats in Plain English: the Promise of Simple Business to Business Data Exchange

Since 1997, when I first started giving presentations on XML and the Web, I’ve been waiting for the seamless business to business data exchange that would occur, and have been led scratching my head as to why it’s not arrived. All the Web services stuff that’s emerged has been so damn cryptic that it flies in the face of what was anticipated ten years ago. I’ve been following the microformats conversation over the past few weeks, and despite the helpful writings of Mary Hodder, Tantek Celik, and others, it took a lot of reading and discussion with DL Byron to get it all digested. Anyway, here is my take, and I’d be very interested in feedback.

Blogs are great at presenting information that humans can read and understand. But there’s a lot of buzz these days surrounding the possibility that blogs and Web pages could be formatted in a way that would make them easy for computers and other sites to read and understand as well.

Many geeks think that this possibility could be realized by using Microformats, which provide an easy way for businesses and people to dynamically exchange data about things like inventory, product pricing, or even wedding gift registries. For example, one could “wrap” mentions of an inventory item in a microformat, and then that data could be easily recognized by other computers on the Internet.

The acceptance of standards-based design has led to the widespread use of Web content that is structured in a clean, easy to understand way. It turns out that Web pages that are built in this logical fashion can be not only read by human eyes, but also understood by computers that are looking for data patterns. Because standards-based pages are so cleanly built, code on a page could be made to contain descriptive information - such as “this is an inventory item” - that computers could easily understand. Many geeks now believe that widespread agreement on descriptions and specifics of text structure could mean the creation of many new and useful ways to exchange data.

Imagine you own a restaurant, and you’ve posted about a new addition to your wine list on your blog. That may be great for Web surfers that chance to drop by and lay their eyes on the list. But wouldn’t it be even better if nearby wine aficionados were notified by their computer or PDA that their favorite wine has become available just down the street? This is the promise of microformats combined with RSS delivery. Your description of the new wine, “wrapped” with a little “wine list item” formatting could make it happen.

How? If each list item were each “wrapped” in an agreed-upon, widely accepted and understood “wine list item” microformat, it would be easy for customers to be alerted when a wine they like is being offered nearby. Interested customers could tell their computer, cell phone, or PDA to monitor RSS “wine list item” feeds from local restaurants and to alert them when the 2003 Pere de Famille from Betz Family Winery appears. Another option would be to ask Technorati or Google what restaurants in a specific area code offer “wine list item” formatted content containing Chilean Cabernets.

The possibilities for ecommerce and online shopping applications are enormous. A company could publish an inventory list that could be dynamically read by the computers of suppliers. These suppliers could then automatically send the company more components as they are needed.