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We first [looked][1] at microformats back in September at the Web Apps Summit, but in spite of the promise of microformats, not many sites have been quick to adopt them. However that may change soon since Mozilla says that Firefox 3 will support microformats. But before we get into Firefox 3, there's a new add-on, [Operator][8], available now that brings the power of microformats to existing version of Firefox.
In a series of posts, Alex Faaborg, a user experience designer for Mozilla, outlines [how microformats work][2], how Firefox might implement them and what it will mean for users. Also see parts [one][3] [two][4] and [three][5].
>Much in the same way that operating systems currently associate particular file types with specific applications, future Web browsers are likely going to associate semantically marked up data you encounter on the Web with specific applications, either on your system or online. This means the contact information you see on a Web site will be associated with your favorite contacts application, events will be associated with your favorite calendar application, locations will be associated with your favorite mapping application, phone numbers will be associated with your favorite VOIP application, etc.
The basic premise of microformats is create the "semantic web" (which should have been on our vaporware list, even though it isn't exactly software) using tools that already exist.
Microformats are not a new language or anything overly complicated, they're merely an agreed upon format for structuring data using the language we already have -- XHTML. By marking up data using a specific structure, outside applications can read and "understand" that data. This in turn means that applications can use that data in meaningful ways, like the ones Faaborg describes above.
Notable sites that support microformats include Flickr which uses it in geotags, Yahoo! Local, which encodes search result with an hCard, and Upcoming.org, with encodes events with hCalendar.
Check out [microformats.org][9] for more background, example usages and handy link generators.
As mentioned above, if you can't wait for Firefox 3, there's an add-on available right now, Operator is not the first microformats add-on for Firefox, you may also want to have a look at [Tails Export][8], which offers some, but not all, of the same features.
If you'd like to keep tabs on or make suggestions for Firefox 3's proposed microformats support, take a [look at the thread][6] on the Google Groups.
It will be a while yet before Firefox 3 is released and the microformats support is not yet set in stone, but there's no doubt that whatever form Mozilla chooses Firefox will yet again trump IE's feature set.
[1]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/09/a_look_at_micro.html "Monkey Bites on microformats"
[2]: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2006/12/11/microformats-part-0-introduction/ "Introduction to microformats"
[3]: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2006/12/12/microformats-part-1-structured-data-chaos/ "Microformats can help with the chaos of structured data"
[4]: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2006/12/13/microformats-part-2-the-fundamental-types/ "Microformats - the fundamental types"
[5]: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2006/12/16/microformats-part-3-introducing-operator/ "Introducing Operator"
[6]: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.firefox/browse_frm/thread/bca5a231d634f87a/4361d223cc01b53f#4361d223cc01b53f "Microformats in Firefox"
[7]: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/4106/ "Operator - microformats add-on for Firefox"
[8]: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2240/ "Tails Export"
[9]: http://microformats.org/ "Microformats.org"
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