Probably should just block Books a Million from my Gmail. Sheesh!

No luck. Just tried clearing my cache to make sure that wasn’t the problem, but no change. I get a comment field on pages but not on blog posts.

What I was going to say, in addition to the comments below, is that I do see a useful scenario for this metadata.

If you’re running an e-commerce site with a lot of SKUs, or a database like IMDB (Internet Movie Database, if you don’t use it), you are using the same content type repeatedly. So, looking at the example they gave, if their server spit out pages with all the same data types, only the specific values changing (e.g., movie title, actor’s name, etc.), it would make sense. You code it once, and you’re done. Well, that’s assuming it doesn’t break anything else, but that’s a separate concern. In editorial, however, trying to do anything like that would be a nightmare.

So far, for all the talk of the Semantic Web, I’m yet to see it adopted. That was part of the purpose of XHTML and using CSS to create the look of the site. And there are tons of tags out there, say , that no one uses, because 98% of the time, sites are coded for the design, not the semantics. And it makes sense. Coders don’t know the content intimately enough. And though most writers, editors, and content strategists have something between a working knowledge and near proficiency of HTML/CSS, we can’t sit there and dictate every tag.

Again, thanks for a great post. Since I can’t seem to post a response, if you’d like to use anything I’ve written you as a follow-up to the post, feel free. Just use my name.

I wouldn’t worry about it. The Search Monsters are trying to impose a standard, but I don’t believe that it’s in any shape to be implemented. I haven’t seen any examples on schema.org of anything like real xhtml: They’re mostly just fragments of basic database dumps, so in my view, it’s not going to take us very far. It’s rather like three Godzillas stomping through a model of Tokyo: Yes, they can smash it to bits, but it’s still only a model.

Hope this helps some–

Stephen

I have just programmed this OK looking website that you can view at http://www.parmaair.com/

I just want to simply implement the code as they do in the Schema.Org example.

Here is my code:

Furnace and Air Conditioner repair in Parma Ohio

Parma Air Heating and Air Conditioning is a family owned and operated company with very simple goals, which include offering exceptional services at the best possible pricing and providing products which will bring our customers nothing less than 100% satisfaction. Our specialists are qualified to identify heating and cooling issues in your home that may result in lowering your monthly energy bills! In addition we stock a full inventory of award-winning ENERGY STAR® rated furnaces and air conditioners that will add value to your home while keeping energy cost low.

If I try to add

then my backgrounds gets all screwed up and the sight doen’t act properly.

I am using Dreamweaver 5.5.

What the heck am I doing wrong?

I appreciate your time.

Thankyou.

George from Ohio

nice to see Content guys embracing Agile.

Please note that the backlog needs not to be “enormous and rich” (that would be wasteful), and it’s supposed to be dynamic and continuously changing (that’s one of the key Agile principles: responding to change) so initially it does not include “all the features and attributes that could possibly be included in the final product”.

BTW blaming a platform for not achieving Agility sounds a bit weird to me

Gaetano

As I say, I’m not really a taxonomist/ontologist. I try to simplify complex ideas so that they are more widely digestible. I think, though, that your last point (i.e., [paraphrase] that one should focus more on site structure and navigation than on taxonomy) can only take one so far. If you have a small site, then creating an ontology, I agree, is a lot of work for very little gain, but navigation and site organization quickly become too complex to reveal the site’s content after a few areas and levels (across and down). Browsing becomes impossible at that point, and site search remains unreliable.

In addition, I think it’s impossible to talk about “metadata” on its own because the risk is too great to overlook the importance of defining a formal schema. Tagging becomes inconsistent without a solid mapping of terms. So in a particular content domain where people have many ways of finding what they need, the metadata must be applied consistently according to the structure to ensure that everything falls into its rightful “place,” regardless of how the visitor defines that “place.” My own goal for content is to have it arrange itself wherever the visitor expects to find it, rather than defining a website structure to hold it.

What do you think?

Stephen