The BlogMD Initiative (via The Noisy One): “The BlogMD initiative, by creating a standard ping API supported by multiple CMS developers, will remove this barrier to entry from the weblog metadata application space.”
What it basically means is that you can make your metadata available through an API. It’s similar yet different from XFML:
– BlogMD wants to provide a centrally imposed set of metadata, mostly focussing on things like title, creation date, author and such. “[…] think creatively about what a good set of standard metadata to track around blogs would be.” XFML wants each author to create it’s own metadata structure, and is more focussed on topics without values (a date has a value, a topic doesn’t).
– BlogMD shares its data through an API (using pings, like TrackBack), XFML shares its data by publishing an XML file (like RSS). Pings will scale better and offer some possible cool advantages, XML files offer simplicity and ease of developing for (everyone knows how to parse an XML file).
– XFML is in version 0.8 (not published yet), BlogMD is just starting. We’re ahead ;)
– Ease of implementation: XFML exporting is very easy to implement, full XFML functionality (importing, merging, …) is a lot harder, but BlogMD is even harder.
Overall, they sound like two complementary technologies. Go check them out and if you’re technically inclined, give them a hand!
Peter Van Dijck 
Pedro –
I’m not yet familiar with XFML, but now that I know of its existance, I’ll be attempting to correct that lack of knowledge on my part!
A few minor points on your description of the BlogMD initiative, however:
1) You indicate that BlogMD intends to create a fixed set of metadata to be tracked about blogs. This is true; we think things like URL, name, etc. can be standardized. However, you imply that we will NOT provide a way for this framework to be extended. This is far from determined at this point — and I for one will be pushing for BlogMD to create a framework flexible enough to be expanded by authors themselves.
2) You imply that BlogMD will only be usable via a ping API. This is almost certainly not true; the ping API is only one possible interface we’re discussing. In fact, it is very likely that BlogMD will support publishing via XML as well.
3) You indicate “BlogMD is even harder” in terms of implementation. Sheesh — if you know how hard our effort is going to be, I wish you’d tell us! We’re only just getting started — its very, very premature to make any conclusions as to how difficult or simple our implementations will be.
This point applies to the others as well; we’re really getting off the ground now; soliciting ideas and input from anyone who is interested, so virtually nothing is fixed in stone yet.
At any rate, I look forward to learning more about XFML, and hope you’ll lend your ideas to BlogMD as well…
-NZB
Thanks for the corrections! I’ll post them on my homepage when I get back to my own computer :) Nothing like some premature conclusions (on my part) to clear things up.
A quick read through the XFML specification indicates to me the authors have a much more ambitious effort in mind than BlogMD. Much of the XFML structure is dedicated to a high level discussion including the computer-unaddressibility of “meat” subjects (Shakespeare is one example) and reification of “meat” objects into topics. XFML wants to be encylopedic and their language is correspondingly robust and large.
On the other hand, BlogMD’s highest order or organization might be a “post” or “message” or other narrowly drawn computer artifact. I see anything coming out of BlogMD as an intentionally constrained subset (unofficial and perhaps incompatible) of XFML’s larger goals. The Dublin Core and David Menendez’s Thread Description Language are a good place for people to see how essentially simple the BlogMD effort can be.
Interesting – I’m gonna look more into BlogMD to get a better understanding.
About XFML: it’s really a subset of topicmaps (XTM) http://topicmaps.org which is hugely complex, XFML itself (as it is evolving) is fairly simple. :)