Weinberger at Gnomedex on Microformats

Dave has a fascinating interview from Gnomedex on Microformats - with Rohit Khave, Tantek Celik

They talk about a couple of such formats, the first being one that is already pretty standard, hCal and how you would use the Microformat tools to embed links and references in your postings, the other one is hReviews which don't yet have a standard and describes how they went about building one on the fly in less than a week.

All of which sounds good to me, but also sounds like my favourite problem More Work.

As I mentioned in the earlier post about IM management tools, I want more and more for the tool to respond to what I'm doing, and offering me options for achieving the peripheral activities that go with a networked world, such as links, Technorati tags, Chitika adverts etc.

The same applies with Microformats. I want my software to be aware that I will mention dates, events, conferences, competitions, maintain my internal connections to them and be aware of them on the network. So, as more and more people start using stuff like RSSCalendar, I want a plugin that lets Qumana subscribe both to my calendar and a generalised calendar web service, so that I only have to mention the event to have a link created to it if it is in my calendar or offered to me if its in someone else's.

And, as I just said to Arieanna Foley who is helping me sort out about Chitika ads (they're based on keywords and guess who doesn't use keywords)

My big problem here is that I don't use keywords, I think they are a pain. You may have noticed that I'm a big fan of emergent processes rather than top down data structures, and keywords sit at the bottom of that pile, which is why I never get to them.

That said, I would LOVE my Blogging tool to have a little app that comes up as I post, that I'm sure I've described somewhere. It would parse the text and offer me what it thinks are the keywords with a couple of check boxes beside each on. The first accepts the offer, If I don't check it, ignore it. The second says "always ignore". so that common words don't keep being offered. Then, when I hit OK it converts drops the keywords into the TypePad field, converts them to Technorati Tags

The guys at World Bank/ Gateway had a tool that, whenever someone submitted a new resource would automatically parse the content and extract keywords for the search engine. Something like that is what I have in mind.

One day I'll get my real IM tool, no doubt it will be a Heath Robinson affair with plugins and doodads hanging off in all directions, but when I open it in the morning I wont have to launch anything else all day to read, write, publish, archive, search and communicate with others.

OK, who swapped my meds?

Technorati Tags : Microformats, Gnomedex, IM, Management, networked, world, Heath, Robinson