A Developer's Introduction to Microformats - ' Defining Terms ' (
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When Bill Gates recently said at the MIX Conference, "We need microformats," he indicated that microformats are here to stay. Microformats are expected to have increased significance on the web. But what exactly are microformats?
Microformats are a set of open data formats used to mark up
XHTML content to provide a bit of semantic meaning. Proponents often categorize Microformats as part of the “lowercase” semantic web, to distinguish it from the lofty (and by some accounts unnattainable) goal of the “Semantic Web.”
An example may help make this topic more concrete.
The following is an example of XHTML code someone might use to link to my blog.
<a
href="http://blog.example.com/"
title="some generic blog"
rel="friend met">A
Friend</a>
Notice the bolded section, rel="friend met". This attribute value indicates that the anchor tag refers to someone who is both a friend of the author and someone whom the author has met.
To refer to oneself, simply specify a value of “me”:
<a
href="http://haacked.com/"
title="The author’s blog"
rel="me">The
Author</a>
Attaching relationship info within an anchor tag is an example of the XFN Microformat.
Notice the simplicity of this format. By simply adding a rel attribute to your HTML markup, you are already in the business of adding microformats to your code. This format is based on a pre-existing format called the XHTML Friends Network.
Techniques 
