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This page lets you learn about the state of the SMBmeta Initiative without having to read through all of the Weblog entries in chronological order.
What is the SMBmeta Initiative?
The SMBmeta Initiative 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.
You can read the original posting announcing this initiative in the weblog on January 10, 2003: The SMBmeta proposal.
The Introduction to SMBmeta essay in the Writings section has a discussion of the reasons behind the project and the key thoughts that are driving
the design.
If you'd like to try creating an SMBmeta file, and then perhaps let others know that you've added it to a website, look
at the tools described in the January 16, 2003 weblog posting: Initial tools available. Those tools are on the www.smbmeta.org website. To see a simple, sample directory derived from that data, see www.overall.com.
A common question is about "spamming" search engines with SMBmeta data. This is discussed in the SMBmeta and Spam essay.
How the various components of Directories and Applications, and various web services, in addition to the SMBmeta data
file, can fit together is discussed in the Proposed SMBmeta Ecosystem essay. A sample implementation of such an ecosystem is described (along with source code) on the www.smbmeta.org website.
Search engines that don't know about SMBmeta can participate if they find a link to the SMBmeta file. We present one
way to do that with The SMBmeta Button.
What do others have to say about it?
What's next?
Here's how I currently plan to move things along:
Now that there is a relatively complete specification of the file format (v0.9), it is time for companies to start adding
smbmeta.xml files to their websites. (The tools on www.smbmeta.org can be used to create such files, if necessary.) Those companies should register their domains with the Registration Utility
found there. That list will be made available to developers that want. It is also used to drive the www.overall.com directory as a demonstration sample.
Companies that want to support the SMBmeta Initiative with more than just adding a file (for example, search engines
or directories that want to either use the SMBmeta data or provide "proxy" data) should contact the webmaster at smbmeta.org.
Check back here to see the state of things, or follow the weblog.
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