Blind Five Year Old

Google adopts microformats. Finally.

What are microformats?

Microformats is a semantic markup that brings structure and meaning to metadata. In less technical terms it means you can tell search engines exactly what the content is versus having them guess. Google is supporting just two of the microformat standards initially – reviews and people – but seems committed to expanding their coverage in the future.

Why microformats matter

The upside to microformats is that search engines no longer have to guess. Remember, think of a search engine as a blind five year old.

A five year old may figure out that what they’re reading is a review by noticing the format or content of the text. (They can’t really ‘see’ a star rating.) A search engine might piece it together. You’d hope so but … they’ll often fail.

Microformats lets you put a big headline on the review that shouts ‘this is a review‘.

What are rich snippets?

If the search engine can understand and trust the metadata it can transform bland search results into something more robust and compelling. This is what Google calls a rich snippet.

Both Microsoft and Yahoo! adopted microformats long ago and Yahoo! has been using SearchMonkey to accelerate the display of robust search results. It was an area where I believed Yahoo! had an advantage and should have been seeking to exploit it more.

A rich snippet is far more attractive and will drive more clicks. It was rumored that Google was holding out because they didn’t want to create an inequity based on the ability to implement semantic markup.

Was Google trying to write an extraction program to interpret native code so everyone could obtain a rich snippet? Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t but they’ve clearly decided that rich snippets are important and microformats are the way to quickly deliver rich snippets in search results.

Microformats go mainstream

I’ve been a big proponent of microformats since being introduced to them by Chris Eppstein. I was so sure they’d go mainstream it was one of my 2009 Internet and Technology Predictions.

Does the adoption of microformats by Google fulfill that prediction? I think so.

Now is the time when bloggers go on the record with their thoughts for the year ahead. Place your bets! Stake your claim! Here’s mine.

Facebook Becomes A Portal

Realizing that social media and advertising is like oil and water, Facebook repositions itself as a portal leveraging Microsoft’s Live Search as the revenue model. This also might result in the potential acquisition of Netvibes to provide a more robust offering to compete with Yahoo!

Identity Systems Fail

Confused about the difference between OpenID, Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, users throw up their hands and decide not to use any of the above.

Video Advertising Succeeds

The adoption of video is surging faster than many expected. Longer formats and better quality will bring even more eyeballs who will grudgingly accept advertising.

Microformats Go Mainstream

Why they aren’t already is shocking. Nevertheless, in 2009 we’ll see microformats become a standard and search results will become far more robust as a result.

Banner CTR Becomes Obsolete

Brands will finally realize that measuring success by click through rate (CTR) isn’t working. Measurement ‘beyond clicks’ will be the new yardstick, whether that’s through new brand advertising measurement services like Vizu or through monitoring services like Brandwatch and Trackur among a gaggle of others.

RSS Adoption Spikes

Someone will (finally) figure out how to market RSS to ‘the masses’ who will grasp the sublime benefits of having content come to you instead of the other way around.

Kindle 2.0 Flops

Amid a weak economy Amazon releases the newest version of Kindle. Other readers have gained ground where Kindle has not and at the core Kindle is a solution without a problem.

Google Search Share Stalls

The move by Facebook (see above) causes a radical change in the search landscape. Microsoft passes Yahoo! for second place and talks about a Microsoft Yahoo merger are (unbearably) reignited.

FriendFeed Surpasses Twitter

FriendFeed adoption increases at an accelerated pace due to quick innovation, uncluttered design and an interface that lends itself to communication.

Someone ‘Dies’

Users reach social media overload and VCs get even more nervous about revenue creating social media shrinkage. In this instance ‘Dying’ means a company goes under or is purchased for a song. My short list includes Plurk, Twitter, Digg and Seesmic. This isn’t a reflection of the people or product but the inability to truly reach the mainstream with a service that has a profit model.

There are plenty of other things that I believe will happen in 2009, but they seem more obvious or an extension of current trends. Instead I tried to be a bit more bold, at least on a few of my predictions.

We’ll check in this time next year to see how I fared. In the meantime, feel free to comment and provide your feedback and reaction to my predictions.