Experimenting with the hCard Microformat

Over the past few months I’ve been paying a bit of attention to the growing momentum behind microformats on the web. What are Microformats?

Designed for humans first and machines second, Microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Learn more about Microformats.

Basically they’re a more advanced way of marking up some common content on the web. Things like people, reviews and calendar events. See them all here.

The one thing I thought they were missing were recipes, an almost perfectly standardized type of content that would benefit hugely from being standardized. Imagine no longer wondering how many millilitres are in a cup. Instead, choose your measurement standard and the recipe is translated into that system. Imagine not having to wander through recipes matching what you have to what’s called for. Just search for the recipes with your ingredients. I digress.

To try my hand at getting started I chose the easiest and most useful Microformat - contact information - and used the hCard creator to make myself an hCard. Simple, I thought. I liked it.

Then I tried to add my personal contact information to the Work Industries contact page. Oh. Not so simple.

I’ve got my James Sherrett vCard working to show my information and image. But what I want to do is create a keen way to download my contact information like they have on the Habaneros contact page (click on the contact details link then try the card link: presto!).

Anyone have any pointers? I feel like I’m one simple step away from getting it yet I’m at the end of my technical tether.

Beyond my technical flailings though, I want to point out that my experience with Microformats illustrates the problem on the web: it’s too hard. There’s too much friction to doing it. For Microformats (or any website or web application) to catch on and provide the benefit they promise, which would be a great thing, they have to offer lower friction. It’s simply too hard to do many things today. See the diagram at the top of this post. Do you understand it?

I’m even kind of a nerd about this kind of thing, I use an FTP program, and I’m stumped.