Archive for March, 2008
« Previous EntriesSo how about using RDFa in Microformats?
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Yes, I know…everyone seems to think that RDFa and Microformats are at war. And maybe some would prefer it to be that way. But whatever way you look at it, the work of the Microformats community has been key in getting people fired up about what they might do with metadata that is placed in HTML and XHTML pages. And RDFa is benefiting from the vibrant atmosphere which they have created.
That doesn’t mean I’m saying we can ignore the problems and limitations that Microformats have, such as the difficulty in mixing different formats in one document, the work involved in creating new formats (often wastefully duplicating work that has already been done, since specialist formats invariably already exist), or perhaps most significantly, the inability to refer to things that are not ‘the current document’.
So I have a suggestion.
Why don’t we emphasise the ‘micro’ in Microformats?
Emphasise the ‘micro’
One of the original motivations for Microformats was that they were small, self-contained sets of rules that authors could apply to their documents, which would give the author some kind of benefit. Nothing in that broad definition says ’so therefore steer clear of all other formats or you’ll catch the plague’.
So why not use RDFa features within microformats, as appropriate? But Microformats could still retain the compactness of a particular format.
I’ll use rel-license as an example.
rel-license
The rel-license microformat is simply the use of the value “license” in the @rel attribute, in some mark-up. For example, if we want to say that the current document is licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses, we might use the following mark-up in our document:
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc by 2.0</a>
However, what if we have a search page that returns lots of images or videos? What if each image or video is available under a different license to other images or videos on the page, or to the license for the page itself? Trying to solve this problem within the framework set by Microformats is proving quite difficult (see the open issues on the rel-license issues page), so at some point we need something more than rel-license.
Reusing @src attribute
The mark-up we gave earlier to indicate that ‘this document’ is available under a certain license, amounts to two attributes, @rel and href:
<a rel=”license” href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc by 2.0</a>
RDFa lets us take that little ‘package’ (or ‘microformat’) and use it anywhere that we can set a ’subject’. Of course normally the subject is the current document, which is why the rel-license microformat looks just the same to an RDFa parser as it does to a Microformats parser. But RDFa allows this ‘package’ to be used with the @src attribute, giving us the following possibilities:
<img src="my-picture.png" rel=”license” href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/” /> <object src=”my-video.mov” rel=”license” href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/” /></object>
As you can see, this straightforwardly solves the problem that rel-license is presenting to those who want to put many items in a page, so all that would be required to take this solution into the Microformats world would be to slightly extend the rel-license microformat to allow the src attribute as a subject.
RDFa or Microformats?
This example illustrates that if we see RDFa and Microformats as playing slightly different roles, then there is no need to take an ‘either/or’ approach to the two techniques.
Since RDFa is a general-purpose syntax that is capable of supporting any vocabulary that anyone comes up with, now or in the future, then we are often tempted to talk about the general rules. But for new users who are looking to achieve a specific goal, seeing documentation about a specific usage pattern (such as the one I’ve shown here with licensing), will almost certainly be more useful to begin with.
But that is what Microformats is all about–documenting common usage patterns in such a way that people can re-use them in their own mark-up. So what would be wrong with enhancing rel-license to allow the use of @src?
Note that people wanting to parse this microformat could either create a specific parser in the way that they need to do now for other microformats, or they could use a general-purpose RDFa parser.
The key thing is that the mark-up is exactly the same, whether you arrived at the use of @rel="license" via the Microformats page, or an RDFa page.
And that seems to me to be a good result all round, for the authors, for the programmers, for the search engines, and especially for those of us who want to see a more dynamic, usable, and semantic, web.
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from XForms and Internet Applications
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Were looking for 32 Social Media startups, know any?
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Next Thursday is the first Under the Radar conference for 2008. This has been our most popular, highest selling event in the last 8 years. The focus is the business of web apps with an all-star cast of companies, judges and to top it off the CTO of Amazon for our fireside chat.
The next Under the Radar conference is on June 3, 2008 showcasing 32 startups in the Social Media space. We are on the hunt for the best startups in the space they can be from the UK, Israel, Asia, India, Canada or the US or anywhere else but we want to find the best of the best.
If know any, nominate them here.
If youve heard of them, send us an email and well follow up……thanks for your suggestions and help on this if you want to get involved, let us know, well talk 
Categories we are interested in:
* Advertising
* Casual Gaming
* Commerce
* Measurement Tools
* Messaging
* Mobile Applications and Tools
* Publishing
* Search
* Rich Internet Apps
* Search
* Social Media/Networking
* Virtual Communities
* Video
* Web Design Tools
* Widgets and Desktop Enhancements
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on Mar 14, 2008, 3:33PM
Under The Radar This Week - Register Now!
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 The Business of Web Apps: Where the Web Goes to Work
Under the Radar March 20, 2008 | Microsoft Campus | Mountain View, CA
Under the Radar will uncover 32 bleeding-edge startups that have launched within the year, showcasing the newest web apps created by developers with a quest for innovation and a plan for disruption. Having launched numerous companies into startup stardom, Under the Radar is the most discerning and reliable platform today for discovering tomorrow’s leading technology companies.
PRESENTING COMPANIES:
Act-On Software | Blist | Cozimo | DeviceVM | dimdim | DocSyncer | ELASTRA| Eyejot | FeedbackFx | filtrbox | Get Satisfaction | HiveLive | HubSpot | JumpBox | kwiry | LiquidPlanner | Magento | Marketo | Mumboe | NetBooks | NuConomy | Orgoo | PageOnce | Ribbit | SlideRocket | SlideShare | SupportSpace |TimeBridge | Tripit | Universant | Vello | Yoics
GRADUATE CIRCLE COMPANIES:
3Tera | Blogtronix | Clarizen | Longjump | Nirvanix | Q-layer | Smartsheet.com | Transera
Register before the event sells out - last day to register is 3/19 at noon.
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from Under the Radar Blog
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on Mar 17, 2008, 11:45PM
Under the Radar Recap: Business Calls
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Moderator: Ellen McGirt | Fast Company
Judges:
Ryan Floyd | Storm Ventures
Brad Stone | New York Times
Dave McAllister | Adobe
Prsenting Company/Presenter
Eyejot | David Geller
Ribbit | Crick Waters
Vello | Mark Dzwonczyk
The morning’s first session featured three startups in the business communications space and a “lively, entertaining, and distinguished panel” according to expert moderator Ellen McGirt. The calling space is crowded, our judges had lots of feedback about functionality - they like it - vs. getting traction - they’re not so sure. Skepticism may be the order of the day…
The feedback from our panel:
Ryan stated that although the competition is fierce “From a VC standpoint, chaos is good. Chaos is where we make money. Static order is bad news for us.” Brad Stone asked the question “Why do startups expect developers to do all the work for them? Are developers a finite resource? When do we start to run out of developers?” Dave finished the feedback by saying “The word ‘free’ doesn’t appear in the words ‘open source’. Open source doesn’t mean giving away. It means opening and extending. If don’t build community first, then you’re dead. I like eating, so someone needs to pay me.”
-Written by Ben Wan
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on Mar 20, 2008, 9:15PM
Under the Radar Recap: Virtualization
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Moderator: Jeremy Toeman | Stage Two Consulting
Judges:
Prashant Shah | Hummer Winblad VP
Stephen Stribley | Microsoft
Kara Swisher | AllThingsD.com
Comapny/Presenter:
DeviceVM | Mark Lee
Elastra Corporation | Kirill Sheynkman
JumpBox Inc | Sean Tierney
Universant Corporation | Craig Macy
The panel wanted to know if DeviceVM was going after the consumer or corporate market - Jeremy asked How many of you leave your computers on all night? How many are you into green? About Elastra - how do they compare against current systems today? Who else is doing this and who in the company needs to hear about you? Prashant asked As 90% of Web 2.0 companies go out of business, what happens to your market? If Im a Web 2.0 startup, why do I care? Elastra is more enterprise facing so it shouldnt be a problem.
Of Jumpbox app-server virtual platform the question was - why would I pay $200 for JumpBox? Jeremy mentioned that I have a small company with six people, would I use your company? I will pay $200 if it saves me two days. Its a pain point, any engineer will agree but do the engineers pay the bills? The panel wanted to know is Universant selling - and to what kind of companies?
-Written by Marc Burch
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on Mar 20, 2008, 9:28PM
Under the Radar Recap: Manage Up
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Moderator: Jeremy Toeman | Stage Two Consulting
Judges:
Prashant Shah | Hummer Winblad VP
Stephen Stribley | Microsoft
Kara Swisher | AllThingsD.com
Company/Presenter:
Act-On Software | Raghu Raghavan
Magento | Roy Rubin
Mumboe | Bill Kane
NetBooks | Ridgely Evers
The panel was impressed with the Cisco investment in Act-On-Software. They wanted to know their special magic and how defensible is their solution. However, there solution seemed to be a little of everything.
The panel asked Magento about their open source solutions. There are a lot of competitors in this space. Prashant was concerned that they are going after so many models.
For Mumboe the big question was about the competition and how they get management to look at their product.
For NetBooks - Stephen was Impressed by the presentation, they all agreed that the market is extremely valuable. The panel closed with a discussion that applications running in the cloud. That this market is Microsofts to lose.
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on Mar 20, 2008, 9:46PM
Under the Radar Recap: Get Aggregated
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Moderator: Ellen McGirt | Fast Company
Judges:
Ryan Floyd | Storm Ventures
Brad Stone | New York Times
Dave McAllister | Adobe
Presenting Company/Presenter:
DocSyncer | Cliff Shaw
kwiry | Ron Feldman
Orgoo | Sean Rad
Pageonce | Guy Goldstein
The second morning session showcased four startups which provide aggregation services. First up was DocSyncer, the panel had questions about security and competition from Google themselves. Brad Stone: “Sitting between Microsoft and Google seems like a dangerous place to be.”
Kwiry went over well - Ryan enthused “I gotta say that your business is spot on. The mobile device is never going to be a PC. Orgoo was up next -all of the panelists agreed that Orgoo offers a cool mashup service.
The final presentation of the session was by PageOnce - Brad and Dave brought up the security issue. Ryan countered that many times “security is really about perception, not reality.”
-Written by Ben Wan
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on Mar 21, 2008, 1:24AM
Under the Radar Winners Announced
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Announcing the Winners!
Under the Radar is happy to announce the category winners for our Business of Web Apps conference. It was a great event with great presenting companies - thanks to all our startups who got up on stage and told us why they’re great.
Business Calls
Judges Choice: Ribbit
Audience Choice: Vello
Virtualization
Judges: Universant
Audience: DeviceVM
Get Aggregated
Judges: Kwiry
Audience: Kwiry
Manage Up
Judges: Netbooks
Audience: Magento
Happy Customers
Judges: SupportSpace
Audience: Get Satisfaction
Virtual Worker
Judges: SlideRocket
Audience: SlideRocket
Working Together
Judges: Blist
Audience: Blist
Marketing and Measurement
Judges: Nuconomy
Audience: Nuconomy
Overall Winner
Judge: SlideRocket
Audience: Get Satisfaction
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on Mar 21, 2008, 1:44AM
Under the Radar Winners Announced
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Announcing the Winners!
Under the Radar is happy to announce the category winners for our Business of Web Apps conference. It was a great event with great presenting companies - thanks to all our startups who got up on stage and told us why they’re great.
Business Calls
Judges Choice: Ribbit
Audience Choice: Vello
Virtualization
Judges: Universant
Audience: DeviceVM
Get Aggregated
Judges: Kwiry
Audience: Kwiry
Manage Up
Judges: Netbooks
Audience: Magento
Happy Customers
Judges: SupportSpace
Audience: Get Satisfaction
Virtual Worker
Judges: SlideRocket
Audience: SlideRocket
Working Together
Judges: Blist
Audience: Blist
Marketing and Measurement
Judges: Nuconomy
Audience: Nuconomy
Overall Winner
Judge: SlideRocket
Audience: Get Satisfaction
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on Mar 21, 2008, 2:06AM
Under the Radar Wrap-Up
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008By Brett Kaufman
Here at Dealmaker Media we are wrapping up from last weeks Under the Radar Conference focusing on The Business of Web Apps. We brought together 40 great startups and over 350 attendees to Microsofts Mountain View campus.
We heard presentations from the next wave of in the cloud web apps that will help change how we do everyday tasks. Our morning sessions focused on business calls, virtualization, getting aggregated, and managing business documents. After lunch we heard from our Graduate Circle companies as they gave us more insight into their growth plans and the momentum they have been experiencing. The next wave of companies presented on working together and marketing/measurement.
After a fulfilling day of presentations, conference attendees were treated to an intriguing fireside chat with Robert Scoble and Amazons CTO Werner Vogels. The day ended with an evening reception where attendees and presenters were given one last chance to network and make key connections.
We had a lot great press and blog coverage for the event; here are a few selected links:
Kara Swisher from All Things D/Wall Street Journal said about Under the Radar: “a very good version of many such conferences held often around the region, where start-ups come to show themselves off in what amounts to a geek version of American Idol.
Rafe Needleman (Webware/CNET), who moderated our afternoon presentations, picks his top 5 apps from the Under the Radar conference. His 2-minute video shows you some of what you missed out on if you werent in attendance.
Robert Scoble, who interviewed Werner Vogels for our fireside chat, talks with SlideRockets CEO Mitch Grasso. SlideRocket was the winner of 3 awards at UTR, including the overall judges selection.
Make sure you mark your calendars for June 3, 2008 for the next Under the Radar Conference, where we will examine Social Media & Entertainment. If you know of a company who might like to present at the next Under the Radar, please contact us!
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on Mar 24, 2008, 10:15PM