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Thursday, January 30, 2003
SMBmeta RELAX NG Schema
Yutaka Furubayashi, from the University of Cologne, Germany, has written a RELAX NG Schema describing the SMBmeta
file format based on the Version 0.1 specification released so far. RELAX NG is written in XML and is a popular (and somewhat
readable) way to describe XML data. There have been requests for a DTD for SMBmeta to help validate files, and hopefully
this will help with those needs. You'll find a link to the schema and links to a RELAX NG tutorial and other resources on
Yutaka's SMBmeta 0.1 Schema page. Comments would be appreciated. -DanB
Thursday, January 23, 2003
SMBmeta and Spam essay
I've added an essay about SMBmeta and search engine spamming. It includes a discussion of how SMBmeta differs from the
old Keywords meta tags. See SMBmeta and
Spam. -DanB
Monday, January 20, 2003
Next steps
I'm working on a few things for which I need help from others.
First: I'm doing an update to the spec based on feedback. There are two new elements I'm thinking of adding to address
physical location and accessibility.
We need an optional element like "<coordinates>" that specifies lattitude and longitude for a <location>.
While I don't want to force people into giving out their specific location (just as their physical address is optional),
there are many ways in which having lattitude and longitude would be helpful. The <address> element is supposed to have
information sufficient to get the coordinates, but having it already encoded may be more reliable. Anybody have some ideas
who has experience in this area about what type of values and links to give people for finding out that information?
For accessibility I'm thinking of something like an <accessibility> element with attributes like "stairs=number
of steps to get in and get around", "elevator=yes/no", "ramp=yes/no", "platformList=yes/no", "accessibleParking=yes/no". Also,
maybe an attribute for TDD. Could somebody with experience in this area contact me to help?
Secondly, I'm working on some essays. The first will deal with Spamming. I see a few issues here, such as a taxonomy
for the type of "spam" this system will lead to (e.g., showing up in a search for which you are inappropriate, such as porn
in a search for a home builder, and giving false information about your business to raise your position on an appropriate
search). There are the methods aggregator/search engines can use to minimize spam. Finally, there is what we can do to modify
the specification to catch or invalidate such activities. Ideas would be welcome. (The idea of third-party "certification"
has already come up repeatedly and I'll address that.)
Use the "webmaster" at trellixtech dot com email address for comments. Thanks!
-DanB
Thursday, January 16, 2003
Initial tools available
I've just finished putting together some tools to help things get started. They are on the www.smbmeta.org website. These are early, and have not been tested much.
The first is the SMBmeta.org File Creating Utility. You can use this to create an smbmeta.xml file.
It puts up a big form with lots of fields and instructions that are derived from the spec. When you're done, you can save
the resulting XML to a file on your computer and then upload it to your website. (That file must be named "smbmeta.xml" and
reside at top level in your domain, as set forth in the specification.) While many readers are probably familiar enough with
XML to create their own files, this will help others with getting everything right. (It has a "raw" mode where you can
just edit the XML yourself, too.) I'm considering putting in code to let you have the utility do the uploading (you'd have
to give it your website FTP information just like Blogger or other programs). Is that worth doing? Is that too much of a security
problem?
The other tool is an application to add a domain name to a database listing domains that have smbmeta.xml files. It's
called the SMBmeta.org Registration Utility. While SMBmeta files can be found by spidering the web,
to get things started it would be good for people to let others know they have one in a more proactive way. This is a simple
registry. It does very little checking -- it just checks that the file actually exists and has a correct reference
to the domain in the <business> element. You can also download a copy of the data in the registry if you are a developer
who wants to try building applications that make use of the SMBmeta files. It's starting with one entry for my old Software
Garden company (a domain I control).
It would be helpful if others tried creating smbmeta.xml files with the current spec (either by hand or with the utility).
It would also be helpful if those that do put them up and registered them so others can look at them. These things together
will help us learn things that will help improve and finalize the spec.
If you use these tools, please check back here periodically to learn of any changes. If you have any feedback, please
send it along as it says in the tools.
I wrote these tools myself in Perl. I'm relatively new to Perl (these are only the second effort I've done with
it), so don't expect too much. I am, though, working on making them available in source form under an Apache-like license,
so people can use them as a base for further development.
-DanB
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
SMBmeta in the news
CNet points out the issue of "spamming", a question that keeps coming up. The SMBmeta spec was written with some "anti-spamming"
capabilities in mind. Part of the goal of reviewing the spec is to fine tune those capabilities. I'll try to write an
essay about it in the next few days and post it here.
7:27 pm est
Monday, January 13, 2003
Tucows looking into SMBmeta
I received this from Elliot Noss, CEO of Tucows, a leading provider of Internet services to Internet service providers (ISPs) and Web hosting companies, and a major ICANN-accredited
registrar, with millions of registrants and thousands of resellers:
"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."
-DanB
Saturday, January 11, 2003
New pages on this website
To make it easier for new readers to come up to speed with the SMBmeta Initiative (which is what I'm calling this proposal
and other efforts around it), I've added a page titled " About the SMBmeta Initiative". It is organized by topics and has links to relevant pages elsewhere. That way, you don't have to read through all the weblog
posts to catch up.
I've also added a " What Other Are Saying" page linking to comments on external websites as well as to email exchanges that are chronicled here in the weblog.
It already has some entries. -DanB
Friday, January 10, 2003
The SMBmeta proposal
One of the concerns of businesses is having their web site found by customers. One of the concerns of customers is being
able to find an appropriate set of businesses from which to choose to meet their needs. (My post below from last Friday shows
how important searching on the web has become to the general populace.) Web sites and normal search engines meet some
of these needs. Unfortunately, it has been difficult for search engines to ascertain specific information such as
the particular locale served by a business, the type of the business, the languages spoken by the staff, etc. A human
being can often find out this and a wide variety of other information by reading a web site, but it can be hard to automatically
find it out for constructing a reliable database. The goal of this "SMBmeta" project is to provide a way to amass
this additional data to aid in searching. ("SMB" is a common abbreviation for "Small and Medium-sized Businesses".) It
is not to provide the data that you would find on the web site itself, just the data you use in searching.
The
way we do this is with an "smbmeta.xml" file.
The smbmeta.xml file is an XML file stored at the top level
of a domain that contains machine readable information about the business to which the web site is connected.
It is an open, distributed way for small and medium-sized businesses to communicate information such as the physical location
of the business and the area it serves, as well at the type of business, to search engines and other services. Hopefully,
it will open up innovation that will result in a wide variety of new services that will benefit the SMBs and their customers.
To help start the discussion, I've posted an introduction essay that covers the reasoning behind the technical aspects of the specification. It includes some of what I've learned from watching
the growth of the use of RSS in the weblogging community. In addition, I've posted a first draft (version 0.1) of a specification which details the file elements. In the coming days and weeks I'll be releasing some server-based tools for creating and
checking these files, and a database to aid in the initial aggregation. Interland has agreed to provide
hosting for these services, and much of the source code will be available under an Apache-like license so others can
start with it to do experimentation. (Of course, you can use your own code, if you want, and provide your own services on
your own servers.)
Interland (and its Trellix subsidiary) is arguably the leading small and medium-sized business web hosting provider. It
is not in the search engine or directory business. I feel it is our role as a leader to make this proposal
in an open, non-proprietary way so that others will benefit. (Of course, doing something that makes a web site more valuable
to a small business owner is in Interland's interest, too, I hope.)
Send comments to webmaster at trellixtech dot com.
-DanB
Friday, January 3, 2003
Customers take advantage of business websites (even if you don't sell online)
There have been various press reports that point out that having a website is valuable to businesses even if they don't
actually take orders on the site. It seems that there is more evidence that an Internet presence is important to the
normal customer relationship.
For example, the New York Times reported that "Best Buy's surveys show that more than half of its customers check its Web site before coming into its stores, up from one-third
last year."
More interestingly, the Pew Research Center issued a report called " Counting on the Internet". Some quotes from the report:
"With growing online experience comes greater skill at finding things online... The result is high expectations about
what is online."
"A final piece of the picture is the growth of Web sites that help deliver on expectations and that have become, for
many Internet users, trusted online sources and tools." [Speaking about Google, eBay, and other ways of finding things.]
"The testimony of Internet users speaks loudly about the expectations that people bring to their online information searchers...most
respondents were enthusiastic in saying that the Internet delivered on their informational expectations."
"Consumer comfort with the online world breeds growing confidence in ecommerce... All of this adds up to high expectations
about finding product information online. Fully 63% of all Americans say they expect to find information at a store’s Web
site about a product they may want to purchase or learn more about."
"With many people relying on the Internet for product information, it is not too surprising that having an online presence
– even if a store’s Web site is not transactions-enabled – helps bring people into merchants’ doors...having a Web site helps
a business even if the site does not enable transactions."
It is well worth reading the whole report to see how accepted the Internet has become to normal people and how
important it is to the "marketing mix" of a business, large or small.
-DanB
Now Interland
Some changes were made to this website to reflect the acquisition of Trellix by Interland. For example, Interland is
a public company, and this web site is not an "official" means of communicating with investors. It should be clear that material
here is often personal opinion, and not necessarily that of Interland. The goal of this website is to allow the free
give and take that is helpful to the development process. Everything is subject to change, etc., etc.
-DanB
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