[whatwg] RDFa Problem Statement

[Greg Houston]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Ben Adida <ben at adida.net> wrote:
> Here's one example. This is not the only way that RDFa can be helpful,
> but it should help make things more concrete:
>
>  http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/
>
> Using semantic markup in HTML (microformats and, soon, RDFa), you, as a
> publisher, can choose to surface more relevant information straight into
> Yahoo search results.
>
> And tool builders can build custom applications that surface other kinds
> of data for users who choose to install their SearchMonkey application.
> The extensibility of RDF, and in particular the ability to intermix
> vocabularies so that different applications can slice the data in their
> own chosen way, is key to this effort, as Yahoo appears to have recognized.

I am not sure if Ben was eluding to this in the last paragraph, but to
further complicate things SearchMonkey is not actually using RDF, but
their own specification based on RDF called, DataRSS, or in their own
words, "a standard similar to RDF". Since it is Yahoo's own homebrew I
think calling it a standard is something of a leap. It seems more akin
to Microsoft creating their own version of Javascript.

http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/08/rdf_xslt_and_the_monkey_makes_3.html

http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/smguide/datarss.html

On a side note, I don't have an opinion on this discussion. I just
thought this could use some clarification. Ben's post seemed
misleading to me since it made no mention of DataRSS.

- Greg