Woo! Microformats!

[the_eggwhite]

Huzzah!

I've just implemented the hCard and the hCalendar microformats in a site. Okay, so it's only a prototype, but hey... They'll probably carry over to other things too.

I'm at the stage where I can get the firefox operator add-on to pick them properly, and if I use Technorati's converter tools I can import them into Outlook. If I don't use the converters, well, I can do whatever operator does.

For hCard contacts this means I can download a vCard import it into my address book of choice.
For hCalendar this means I can add it to my google calendar.

Microformats will start springing up more and more, I think. They're supremely cool, easy to implement and incredibly useful when they exist and you have the tools to support them. I expect many, many browsers to support them natively in the near future.

Edit: There's also a bookmarklet here:
http://leftlogic.com/lounge/articles/microformats_bookmarklet
Make it a bookmark and stick it on a toolbar. Click it and it'll tell you if your current page has any microformat stuff in it.

Comments

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked in detail but it does indeed look rather cool. I will put aside some time to investigate this further and hopefully use and evangelise it :)

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm going to arbitrarily assume that you're a firefox user and suggest that you grab the add-on that I mentioned above. A lot of "Web 2.0" style sites are already stealthily implementing microformats without telling anyone - and that extension will give you a hint when they're in use...

At the conference I was at last week, there was even discussions about whether microformats should just be implemented in sites by default, without even bothering to discuss it with clients...

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

You're correct - I'll look into it when I have a moment ;)