One of the more interesting technologies that I’ve noticed emerging in the past year or two is the concept of Microformats. Essentially what microformats provide is a standard format for embedding XML data in textual content. What this allows us to do is embed actual data in content and then automate data extraction.
There are already a ton of companies implementing this technology–you can use it today. A lot of semantic Web people don’t like it because it’s far more unstructured than technology like RDF. However, you can’t argue with the fact that it’s being used. And the main reason, in my opinion, is that it gives people a concrete method to use them, unlike RDF, whose definition is very hazy when you try to wrap your brain around it. There are a ton of standard microformat schemas that you can use and they’ll start working immediately.
For an example of what microformats can do, you may want to check out the Microformat viewer I posted a while back.
Part of the 60 Ideas in 60 Days series. Click here for the rest of the ideas.
