Web Things, by Mark Baker

Tres cool demo from Microsoft, as described on Ray Ozzie’s blog;

But each site is still in many ways like a standalone application. Data inside of one site is contained within a silo. Sure, we can cut and paste text string fragments from here to there, but the excitement on the web these days is all about “structured data” such as Contacts and Profiles, Events and Calendars, and Shopping Carts and Receipts, etc. And in most cases, the structured form of this data, which could be externalized as an XML item or a microformat, generally isn’t. It’s trapped inside the page, relegated to a pretty rendering. So, where’s the clipboard of the web?

If you take a look at what gets put in your clipboard on a “copy/cut” action, you see this;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?><liveClipboard version="1.0"
xmlns:lc="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/live"><lc:format type="hCard">
%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22vcard%22%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22n%22%3E%3C
span%20class%3D%22given-name%22%3EMatt%3C/span%3E%20%3Cspan%20
class%3D%22family-name%22%3EAugustine%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Ca%20
class%3D%22email%22%20href%3D%22matta@microsoft.com%22
%3Ematta@microsoft.com%3C/a%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22tel%22%3E%3C
span%20class%3D%22value%22%3E425%20707%207716%3C/span%3E
%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22adr%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D
%22type%22%3EWork%3C/span%3E%3A%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22street-address%22
%3E1%20Microsoft%20Way%3C/div%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22locality%22
%3ERedmond%3C/span%3E%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22region%22%3EWA%3C
/span%3E%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22postal-code%22%3E98052%3C/span
%3E%20%3Cabbr%20class%3D%22type%22%20title%3D%22dom%22%3EUSA%3C
/abbr%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E
</lc:format></liveClipboard>

I wonder what purpose is served by the proprietary XML wrapper? The “type” doesn’t need to be specified. I suppose the relevant value of the HTML profile should be imported if present, but that could also be done by prepending the relevant snippet from the HEAD, no?

Tags: microformats

Justsystem acquires XMetal. Woot!
(link) [del.icio.us/distobj]

Via Jim Webber, a really nice description of the differences between RPC and state transfer approaches using a uniform interface. “The message on the channel no longer represents an instruction but rather an event, a notification that something happened”
(link) [del.icio.us/distobj]