Finally. After lots of work, I have a complete sample SMBmeta ecosystem implemented and running for public viewing. (I'm
assuming that anyone reading this has read the
Proposed SMBmeta Ecosystem essay.) Here's what there is:
On the new website
www.overall.com, there is a simple directory of businesses with SMBmeta data files. It can be searched by gross NAICS code, postal code,
and country. It shows some of the ways listing can be done. That directory gets the list of domains to display from the ones
added to the Registry on
www.smbmeta.org using the Registration Utility tool. It is filtered through a simple Affirmation Authority run on overall.com. The pieces
communicate using an XML over HTTP API. It is all documented in "
SMBmeta Application and API Examples" on the smbmeta.org website. This is not a "real" directory, but should be useful in its own right until something better
comes along from someone else. (The domain was one we had at Trellix for many years and now belongs to Interland. The trademark
"Overall" is for a product that has a database, especially with spatial characteristics, which sure fits a postalcode-searchable
directory of businesses.)
The Perl source code for all of this is also available on smbmeta.org. I'm not that experienced with Perl, and I'm sure
there are lots of problems with the code. Let me know if you find any really bad ones so I can fix them.
The specification for the smbmeta.xml file on this website is pretty complete with version 0.9. Any future tools should
be upwards compatible. It is now time for people to create smbmeta.xml files for small business domains and register
them. It is also time for those that are interested to experiment with the system, perhaps implementing their own
versions. Anyone who starts development should contact us here (send mail to "webmaster") and we'll give you an ID for querying
the various databases using the API.
Thanks to all of you who have been helpful in getting this far.
-DanB
