Quietly for the last two years we have begun integrating microformats into the portal; beginning with the first iteration of "Add Household 2.0" when we incorporated the hcard microformat into people search results and household detail view. Now you can find the hcard microformat in group view, search across groups, and in the next version of people detail. This is just the beginning.
As described on their website, "microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards." Creating a standard way of describing specific data gets everyone (consumers, developers, vendors, browsers, plug-in creators) on the same page. An example of this is Michael Kaply's excellent Operator add-on for Firefox. If you're not using Firefox to run Fellowship One, you will be now (and shame on you if you're not already). Here is an example of Operator in action on people search results.
Here we have the results of a name search for all individuals whose name contains "McFedries":
Nothing special here, three individuals with address, phone, and email. But. Hold on a second, if you have Operator installed you'll see something special *is* going on here.
Here is a screen shot of Operator:
Operator has found three microformats for both "Addresses" and "Contacts".
Let's take a look at "Addresses".
Operator has found the addresses within my search results and provided me a way to map those addresses via Google or Yahoo! maps.
Now, let's take a look at the "Contacts" menu.
Just like "Addresses" Operator has found each individual in the search results. Choosing "Export Contact" will export the contact to vcard format and import into my contact management system (Address Book, Entourage, Outlook, Windows Mail) of choice. You could also import all individuals from the search results by choosing "Export All".
Operator is a great add-on for Firefox and a great companion for Fellowship One. Even Bill Gates agrees, "We need microformats".
- matt