Product Description

Microformats burst onto the scene a couple of years ago and are fast becoming an essential tool for all professional web designers and developers. Imagine being able to integrate all of your web-based contact details, tagged articles, and geographical information seamlessly in web and desktop applications, without having to add anything extra to your websites except a little specialized HTML markup. Microformats provide a more formalized technology for adding commonly used semantics (such as contact details, location, and reviews) to today's Web. Unlike XML or the semantic Web, microformats use ubiquitous technologies like HTML and XHTML, existing developer skills, and current web tools, and, perhaps most important, they work in all of today's web browsers. This book is a comprehensive guide to microformats. It explores why, in Bill Gates's words, "We need microformats"; how microformats work; and the kinds of problems microformats help solve. the book covers every current microformat, with complete details of the syntax, semantics, and uses of each, along with real-world examples and a comprehensive survey of the tools available for working with them. the book also features case studies detailing how major web content publishers such as yahoo put microformats to work in their web applications. Written by one of the Web's best-known educators, John Allsopp, Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0 will help you painlessly get up to speed with this exciting technology.

In this book you'll learn

• How to take best advantage of the built-in semantics of XHTML and HTML
• How to extend the semantics of HTML using microformats and open up a world of new possibilities with web applications
• Every aspect of all the common microformats currently in use
• How microformats help your websites and applications easily integrate with web applications like Google Maps, as well as desktop applications like iCal, outlook, and entourage
• What innovative publishers and services, big and small, are doing right now with microformats

Summary of Contents

• PART ONE: INTRODUCING MICROFORMATS
  • Chapter 1: What Are Microformats?
  • Chapter 2: The State of the Art in Microformats
• PART TWO: USING MICROFORMATS
  • Chapter 3: Structural and Semantic HTML
  • Chapter 4: Link-Based Microformats: rel-license, rel-tag rel-nofollow, and VoteLinks
  • Chapter 5:Microformat to Describe Relationships Between People: XFN
  • Chapter 6: Location Microformats: geo and adr
  • Chapter 7: Contact Information Microformat: hCard
  • Chapter 8: Event Microformat: hCalendar
  • Chapter 9: Review and Resume Microformats: hReview and hResume
  • Chapter 10: Syndicated Content Microformat: hAtom.
• PART THREE: CASE STUDIES
  • Chapter 11: Case Study: Cork'd
  • Chapter 12: Case Study: Yahoo
• PART FOUR: DEVELOPING MICROFORMATS
  • Chapter 13: The Process of Developing Microformats
• PART FIVE: APPENDIXES
  • Appendix A: Microformat Specification Reference
  • Appendix B: Microformat Design Patterns
  • Appendix C: People, Tools, Services, and Publishers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #145964 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

About the Author
John Allsopp, successful software developer, long-standing web development speaker, writer evangelist, and expert, has spent the last 15 years working with and developing for the Web. As the head developer of the leading cross-platform CSS development tool, Style Master, and as the developer and publisher of renowned training courses and learning resources on CSS and standards-based development, John is widely recognized as a leader in these fields.

As a presenter and educator, John speaks frequently at conferences around Australia and the world. His idiosyncratic blog "Dog or Higher" (blogs.westciv.com/dog_or_higher/) covers a broad range of subjects, particularly in technology and innovation, and is widely read and referenced. John is also a cofounder of the Web Directions conference series.

John's true claim to fame and source of some embarrassment is (semipublicly) coining the term "Web 2.0" some months before O'Reilly. John apologizes unreservedly for inflicting this term on the world.

When not basking in the glow of various computer screens, John is a volunteer surf lifesaver at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach, where he lives with his wife and young daughter, who are the light of his life.

Customer Reviews

A missed opportunity
Microformats are a great idea with a not so great implementation (IMHO). This book tries to explain what microformats are and how to use them. But John Allsopp keep getting lost in all sort of marginal details without never going to the point. The book is missing: (1) a chapter with a clear syntax for the most common microformats, (2) a perspective view of the evolution of MF and their relevance for the web and the final users. John waste pages and pages explaining all sort of irrelevant details such as how to make a frame with rounded corners using CSS (showing us a very obsolete technique) and similar off-topics. The impression is of an author working with the main concern of generating enough pages not to invalidate the contract with the publisher.

review of Microformats: Empowering your markup for web 2.0
great book on the proper use of html and css and then further why we need microformats and how to use them.

Much better than I expected
Most of the buzz I heard around Microformats has been just that - noise. This book was the first time I read solid reasons to begin incorporating Microformats in my markup. He does a great job of explaining theory, use and then providing use examples for the various formats - and I also appreciated his showing css concepts for styling the information even if on first glance it seemed a bit off topic. I still feel completely undersold on the XFN concept - neat for blogs but for corporate development just not so useful - but I recommend reading the chapter anyway to pick up a few concepts he hides in there. Overall definitly worth buying and reading.