Structured Blogging
There is a wealth of information out there in people’s blogs. Millions of individual bloggers are spewing out a hodge podge of information that’s just sitting, waiting to be discovered.
So how do we find all this great info?
Right now the search engines are the best bet. But given that most bloggers opt for creative titling of their posts, rather than descriptive titles, the search engines have their work cut out for them. My own site, as it is, still gets a few visits from people looking for stories about fish. Tags and categories are another start towards identifying and compartmentalizing information, but everyone’s bound to have different opinions on what something is about and inconsistancies in even using the tags, let alone using the same tag are bound to occur.
So again - how do we find all this great info?
Imagine if you could get bloggers to adhere to a common format. That you could get them to provide information in a consistant and structured manner. The post itself wouldn’t have to look not all that different from any other post, but perhaps some common structure could be given to the underlying XML file. An entertainment site could easily hook into reviews from the blogosphere and be assured that it is a review and not someone opining that they may go see that film. Services such as Edgeio can more reliably and comprehensively find items.
I’d heard talk about this in the past, but had no idea that the efforts to make it a reality were as far along as they apparently are. My previous post on the HPCA Showcase event was made using the new Structured Blogging WordPress plugin.
Installation was quick and painless, as is the case with most WordPress plugins. Using this plugin, I can further compartmentalize the posts I make by using some predetermined formats. The plugin added some tabs under my ‘Write’ menu, where I can select the type of format I wish to write under. There’s a format for reviews, events, lists and to showcase individuals or groups. There are also audio and video options that appear to be quite useful for those doing podcasting.
Writing a post in structured format didn’t any longer than doing it normally and the final output, as you can see, is not that much different from my other posts. Minor tweaking of the stylesheets can help integrate it into pretty well any blog. Now my posts are in a format that is far more readily found and shared. As you can see, the event is now posted to edgeio and passes on the key info in the right format.
All in all, it’s a great idea from the standpoint of the web-based services. I don’t yet see any drawbacks from the blogger’s end of things other than the time it takes to locate and install the plugin (which they’ve also developed for MoveableType). This may, finally, be a way to herd the cats.
tip of the hat to David Parmet who was passing on details from Richard MacManus
