b.cognosco

SMBmeta Initiative.

David Weinberger scoops the SMBmeta Initiative by Dan Bricklin.  This metadata scheme allows small and medium size businesses to express their identity in XML.  David rightly points out why this approach is so smart:

• Dan doesn't want to own the data
• It's free for anyone to aggregate
• Its extensible

What I also like (from the whitepaper, which also provides a great account on why RSS is a success):

• It is low cost, but has a cost to prevent spam (an economic problem)
• It doesn't attempt to serve large enterprises
• Simple and open
• Its decentralized, but has leadership behind it

If you want more information, go to the new TrellixTech web site. There you'll find a blog, the spec, and a highly readable paper on the topic. [Joho]via [Ross Mayfield's Weblog]

The printing industry has tried to do something like this several times over the years, and keeps getting big pieces of it wrong. But they aren't alone. There's a post on Dan's weblog from Elliot Noss, CEO of TUCOWS,

"The SMBmeta proposal sounds really cool! I've had hundreds of people propose ways to get a business directory created over the years but this is the first one that makes sense to me. It's open and distributed like the Internet should be. We're going to look at this closely and figure out how we can help our registrants and resellers take advantage of it."

This is perfect for the publishing and graphic arts industries. For several years a company I worked with kicked around the idea of a "service bus" architecture, a term I think came from someone at HP, but it never got off the ground. The idea was a dynamic directory that would allow editors, artists, cover designers, writers, proof readers, literary agents, printers, binders, distributors, etc. to all plug in a description of their skills and services -- along with a pricing structure -- to create a publishing services marketplace. The idea was stillborn because no one could come up with a suitable structure. This is the first one I've seen that makes sense, and I can see already how it might be extended for special uses within vertical industries.