Operator for Microformats

I've put microformats in the stuff I've built before. And to be honest, I wasn't sure if they were going to take off. The formats were there, but none of the tools to actually use them were around. For a long time, I just used the tails export add-on in firefox. You couldn't really do anything with it, but you could at least see microformats.

The Operator takes it one step further, and adds actions to microformats. In a way, it's a god-send, and now I'm wondering why I didn't write it. I HATE having to cut and paste addresses into google maps. Now, if there's a microformat of an address on a page now, all I have to do is use Operator--two clicks and I'm there. (As an aside, Humanized Enzo makes it even easier to include maps.)

Microformats have been gaining momentum for a year now, and I think it will be important in the web to come. Not because it's one-more-thing to have to know, but because the guys over at social network portability are using it as part of their solution to open up the walled gardens of the social network stovepipes in effect today.

Given how we're all use to using web applications today, it's as if we're always 'reborn' every time we sign up for a new service. It's an odd idea to be able to "take your network with you". If you can do this, especially as mobile devices get more powerful, there can be more and more web applications that can act as mediators in social contexts of the users as they go about the world.

One nice little app would be a name-recaller. At a conference or a party, my mobile phone would detect which other mobile phones are around. It could then query the web application whether I've met any of these people before, and what their names are. So when I actually go to shake their hand, I can address them by name. And as we all know, the sweetest sound to a person's ears is his/her own name.

But that's still a long ways from now. Probably not in another 4 or 5 years, if not more. However, I'd keep an eye on this area. I'm sure you'd hear more about it soon.