Almost a year ago I got involved with microformats. It had instant appeal for me.
A lot of smart people are busy creating the semantic Web of the future, or laying pipes for the WS-* service Web. Those are all great ideas. If you’re into software architecture and sci-fi, there’s a lot to keep your mind busy and great challenges to tackle.
I want something that works.
I got my first microformat hack done over a cup of coffee. It was easy, and it just worked. So I got excited, built some stuff, and waited for them to come. They never did.
Publishing, or as we call it today “user generated contentâ€, is just not that interesting in itself. You publish when you want to be read, and reading happens when there’s an audience around. Microformats had no audience.
Reading Tantek’s blog I also found out about Microformat Base, a one-man effort by Scott Reynen. Impressive what one person can do.
And speaking of Tantek, here’s another bit of wisdom:
Companies take note – on the internet, there will always be smarter, more clever people building on each other’s work than your secret internal committees, your architecture councils, your internal discussion forums — no matter how many supergeniuses you think you may have hired away and locked up with golden shackles in your labs. Either play open or expect your proprietary formats and protocols to be obsolete before they’ve even seen the light of day.