Semantic Web: 4 Fundamental Microformats

In the semantic web, content is contextually processed by the use of semantic metadata in the form of microformats. These microformats contain bits of contextually useful information that is used to connect the content with other websites and information based on a variety of contextual web searches. These formats can easily be embedded in the code of a website (HTML, XHTML, etc) or a web feed. Because microformats are the most important step to getting a website or load of content up to speed for the increasingly semantic web, here are a few of the more important and fundamental types of microformats:

hCard

hCard is the most fundamental microformat. It marks up the identity of a person, place or group as well as other essential contact information. This can include markups for address, telephone, email and other pertinent information. The hCard microformat takes advantage of the already present metadata contained in the widely utilized vCard format as well names and other information already present in blogs, it just adds semantic elements to the metadata. If you decide to do only do one thing with microformats, consider adding an hCard to your content. There are hCard creators available that will allow you to add all of your information into a form that will automatically create a microformat code that you can simply embed directly into your preexisting site. Some of the information you can publish other than name and contact information includes URLs, photo, AIM and YIM screen names, as well as any relevant tags that might draw relevant traffic semantically.

hCalendar

The hCalendar microformat is used primarily for denoting events. Similar to the hCard's relationship with the vCard, hCalendar is based on the iCalendar standard. Utilizing hCalendar allows applications to draw scheduled events and process them semantically directly from recognizing the microformat. There is a very useful hCalendar creator available to get you started event by event.

XFN

XHTML Friend Network (XFN) was arguably where microformats got started. These are used to markup a persons links with human information about how the person doing the linking is socially or professionally related to the person or site being located to. The more people linking together using XFN, the more there is a semantic web of human relationships, not simply a system of contextually meaningless links.

hReview

hReview is used to markup reviews on products, software, entertainment and other media. This is particularly useful for entertainment blogs or tech sites that feature a bunch of product or media reviews. By adding relevant hReview markups to the content, a search engine will understand that the content isn't just about a film, for example, but is actually a review of the film.

Adding microformats to your pages is not as complicated as you might think. For step-by-step guide on implementing a basic hCard, visit microformats.org.

Sources:

http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2006/12/13/microformats-part-2-the-fundamental-types/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microformats
http://microformats.org/get-started/
http://microformats.org/code/hcard/creator
http://gmpg.org/xfn/
http://microformats.org/code/hcalendar/creator