MyBlogLog hCard & vCard: More Microformats, More Portable Data

Those of you that follow MyBlogLog on Twitter got an early preview of a new feature the MyBlogLog team rolled out today.  (To badly paraphrase Ferris Bueller, "If you aren't on Twitter, I highly recommend setting an account up.  It is so choice.")

So, what's new?  MyBlogLog has added the ability to quickly add your contacts and other MyBlogLog members to your address book.  Simply click the new hCard or vCard icon that is displayed on each member's profile page (see screen shot at right) to get started.

So, why two icons?  Today, most users will likely want a standard vCard -- the white icon on the left.  This should automatically open your default address book application (Outlook, Thunderbird, Address Book on Mac, etc.) and prompt you to add the new contact.

Many advanced users have setup custom processing in their browser for hCards and will prefer to use that format -- linked by the green icon on the right.

What's more, hCard is a microformat.  Like the other microformats we have added to MyBlogLog recently -- XFN and Rel=me -- hCard makes it easier for members to use their MyBlogLog information at other services around the internet.  As the hCard wiki entry says, "hCard enables applications to retrieve information directly from web pages without having to reference a separate file."

But wait, their more...  The MyBlogLog team has incorporated member's privacy settings directly into the hCards/vCards.  If a member chooses to share their email address and phone number only with their contacts, the information will only be included on the hCard/vCard when clicked on by their contacts.  Everyone else (and other services online) will only receive the public information the member has shared.

Finally, the team wants to thank Chris Messina for his continued help in getting MyBlogLog microformatized (new word?) and even more open.  You rock!

Person Chris Messina

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Comments

[Chris Messina]

Excellent! Nice work guys -- especially on the selective hcard generation! Very smart! ;)

[Dominik]

Wouldn't it also be quite good to put the hCard microformat in the markup of the member page? At least for the subset of data that is on that page.

[Jauhari]

Perfect, that's why I love MyBlogLog ;)

[Dan...]

nice work!

[Carsten Pötter]

I think it is a great way to add some kind of privacy controls to hCards. This can be an example for other services as well. Well done!

[Stephen Paul Weber]

+1 to getting hCard markup directly on the profile page itself - no need to make it a separate link

[Robert Mark White]

All this new stuff is really great. I am very impressed with all the new features that are being added to Mybloglog. What about adding a foaf icon that leads to our foaf file, somewhere on my profile maybe next to the vcard and hcard icons.

[Greg Cohn]

this rocks!

[simplymama]

Good job.

[Ian Kennedy]

@Robert

Check it out - the four little faces of FOAF are now on all profile pages, just where you wanted them!

Ian

[Robert Mark White]

Thanks I am so grateful for all the hard work you folks have done at MyBlogLog.
Thanks again for the foaf icon.

[Ziru]

This is Great.

[rodaflip]

I am new on twitter guys so i still had a lot to learn on you. I am glad to be a member of twitter.

[Robert Mark White]

Hey I just want to thank you for listening to my suggestion about the foaf icon. That was a very quick response to my request. So now I am going to push my luck, how about helping me get my microid to work correctly. I have checked my email address @comcast.net in my mybloglog profile and I am sure about the url for my mybloglog profile but I can not get the microid on my mybloglog profile to verify on claimid. Please help me get this right.