SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 13, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Leading Web search, blog and development companies including PubSub, Bloglines, Feedster, Meetup, Sxip, CommerceNet, Broadband Mechanics and others today announced the start of an initiative to keep burgeoning structured content standards in sync at the Syndicate Conference in San Francisco.
"A new era in blogging is upon us. We're expanding the ways we create, share and syndicate content -- and we want to make sure that all the emerging standards are inter-operable," said Salim Ismail, Co-Founder of PubSub Concepts, a leader of the initiative.
"The code we're submitting is for peer review," said Marc Canter, CEO of Broadband Mechanics. "We're making sure that all appropriate existing standards are being supported in this plugin 'compatibility box'".
This initiative is being launched with the release of plugins for WordPress and Moveable Type platforms. The plugins will provide bloggers the ability to create Events, Reviews, People and Group Showcases, audio and video media posts and lists. These structured blog posts can then be routed to any destination.
Companies involved in the Structured Blogging Initiative include:
Attensa, Bloglines, Bloqx, Blogg.de, Bryght, CommerceNet, Cordance, Edgeio, etribes, Feedster, 5ive, FreeRange, GoingOn, Indeed.com, IntelliCal, iUpload, iVillage, Meetup, NetVibes, Newsgator, OpenBC, Pluck, PubSub Concepts, Qumana, ReadSpeaker, Reger.com, relevantNOISE, Rojo, Sphere, Sxip, Tribe Networks and Yiibu.
The Structured Blogging Initiative uses microformats and other similar open standards to freely move and share structured content between different vendors' products and services on the Web, as well as in the off-line world.
The new software has been created so that any publisher, from the individual blogger to institutions, can make content more intrinsically searchable and self definable on the Web without giving up ownership of that content. This means that search tools can easily access this content and new, exciting consumer-based Web services can be created.
"With Structured Blogging, millions of blogs or Web sites can post structured items like job offers or offers to sell and have those recognized, indexed, and searched on any number of search sites, just like HTML pages are today," said Pubsub's Ismail.
"RSS, Aggregators, and the blogosphere show that we can all work together -- united for common standards. This collaborative effort takes blogging to the next phase by enabling end-users to create structured content," said Canter.
Others involved with this initiative said the following:
"Imagine someone publishes an offer to sell Ping golf clubs for $300. When they press 'submit', it's published on their blog and the offer is syndicated out into the FeedMesh. Five golf portals are aggregating similar offers and their users quickly find the new clubs. Someone else has 'subscribed' to Ping clubs for $400 or less and is instantly notified about the offer." -- Salim Ismail, PubSub.
"My favorite example of an end-user benefit is the notion of a shared XML repository -- say a San Francisco restaurant review server. Folks could contribute to the server from their blogs, cam phones, kiosks or other Web services. Mobile carriers could then build 'Reviews' into cell phones." -- Marc Canter, Broadband Mechanics.
"CommerceNet believes strongly in the vision of bootstrapping a more intelligent Web by embedding semi-structured information with easy-to-author techniques like microformats. Through our own research in developing tools for finding, sharing, indexing, and broadcasting microformatted data, we appreciate the challenges these companies have overcome to offer tools that will interoperate as widely as possible. We applaud their recent decision to support the microformats.org community in all of the core areas where commonly accepted schemas already exist, such as calendar entries, contact information, and reviews." -- Rohit Khare, CommerceNet.
"Both writers and publishers will benefit from easy-to-use plugins, but even more importantly, publishers and indexers of data will be able to share information based on the use of interoperable tools. This has the potential to be amazingly useful." -- Susan Mernit, 5ive.
With the advent of semi-structured information in blog posts and syndication feeds, users can expect new and useful Web services and applications based on the data embedded within their posts. For example, a blogger reviewing a product with these plugins would create enough information in the post for a browser plugin to do a comparison shopping search. New kinds of aggregators could add friends' calendar entries into your personal calendar or new Web services could track feeds from everyone attending the same conference.
GoingOn Networks also contributed to the Structured Blogging effort by contributing the user interface (in conjunction with Broadband Mechanics). GoingOn will include full Structured Blogging compatibility in its platform when it ships by the end of Q1 2006.
Further development will be supported by the entire community -- with open standards and common microformats.
To learn more about Structured Blogging and to download the plugins, go to http://structuredblogging.org/. For information about joining the initiative contact: info@structuredblogging.org.
About PubSub Concepts, Inc.
PubSub Concepts, Inc. is a New York-based company founded in 2002. The company develops Internet-scale Publish/Subscribe systems and plans a series of product releases designed to make prospective searching a vital element of the Internet experience. PubSub.com provides a free prospective search service that continuously monitors more than 18 million blogs and syndicated Web sites, over 50,000 newsgroups, all SEC Edgar filings, press releases from major wire services, earthquake data from the U.S. Geological Survey, and FAA airport delay information to instantly alert users whenever material events occur. PubSub's prospective search provides a real-time notification service made possible by PubSub's proprietary "matching engine" which, each day, performs hundreds of billions of matches between subscriber requests and newly published items. Visit http://www.pubsub.com for more information.
About Broadband Mechanics
Broadband Mechanics (BBM) is a SF-based developer of 'digital lifestyle aggregators' which helps to create and promulgate open standards such as 'ourmedia.org'. BBM is providing strategic consulting and is building systems for Avid, AOL, EMI, GoingOn Networks, Visual Media, Laszlo systems and Ruckus Networks. The company was founded by Marc Canter -- who previously started a company called MacroMind -- which became Macromedia (and which recently merged with Adobe). Marc helped develop the world's first multiple player, cross-platform authoring systems and multimedia authoring tools.