About about
: There’s a trend-a-popping here. Watch how all these elements add up to 3-D Googling:
: First, David Galbraith suggests a standard for about-me bios on sites that can be added to blogrolls, so those often-numbing listings can have the smell of substance about them. A great idea. (Though I’m a little too stupid to know exactly what I’m supposed to do on my template and I’m too embarrassed to ask.)
: Next, Heiko Hebig takes it a step further and suggests that he add a <bio:marital status> field and, zap, we have an XML dating game.
: Haiko Hebig (no relation, I now discover) also summarizes posts about a proposed Internet Topic Exchange, which is related to where I’m going here, for it enables the creation of dynamic directories of posts/people/sites with similar interests.
: Now see Dan Bricklin’s vision of a standard for a small- and medium-business metadata file that allows a business website to describe itself in a standardized way.
: I’ll take this all a step further and suggest that David et al expand these standard fields to let people find each other or find the things they want: — e.g.,
[freelance:writer], [freelance:designer], [jobsearch:editor], [expert:php]. That’s the sell-side. The buy-side: [hiring:programmer], [buying:antiques]. Then there’s the two-way conversation: [interest:diabetes], [learning:german], [teaching:german].
This doesn’t replace classified ads (remember: I’m a newspaper guy) for you still need a marketplace where buyers find sellers and vice versa with maximum efficiency and currency; it doesn’t replace the Yellow Pages, for they are formatted reliably and are complete; it doesn’t replace eBay, either, for it doesn’t bring purchasing functionality.
But it does allow you to create directories of interest or need.
It finally uses XML the way it can be used.
: This quickly becomes 3-D Google. Start listing the kinds of quality searches you can make: I want to find all graphic designers available in San Francisco. I want to find all online marketers of cameras. I want employers to find me. I want to find people who are also interested in 9.11 memorials. Whatever. Searches become focused and valuable.
Searches build instant networks.
: Updates: First, note that if this competes with anything, it’s Ryze and its successors. The connections it makes can happen out on the network, in the open.
: Another update: I got email from Heiko Hebig (above) explaining that he’s not the same person as Haiko Hebig (also above). They’re used to this. “i know this must be confusing for everyone out there – haiko and i are (as far we know) not related, but we both live in germany, we both ended up in the field of IT and are both happy”bloggers”.”
