I have just added the structured blogging plug-in to this site. It is available from StructuredBlogging and I am in two minds about it, even before I have used it. The idea is impeccable and important, but it feels as though the crew may be preparing to abandon ship.

The concept is simple and a look at the new pages in the WordPress dashboard suggest that it has been delivered in a simple and effective form. The problem is that the plug-in was issued in a blaze of glory at the end of 2005 and then (as far as I can see) little has been done since.

I am completely convinced about the utility of microformats, and I see the need for tools for delivering them, but I do not want to find myself with a mass of content all carefully archived using the Betamax of plug-ins. I don’t want to re-enter years of content when an abandoned plug-in breaks with WordPress 2.5 at some time in the future.

I was also initially wary of the fact that the “plug-in” actually requires a new folder at root level called wpsb-files, nine files in the wp-admin folder titled things like sb-check.php, AND a file in the usual plugins folder.

I can happily say, though, that this all worked when installed in WordPress 2.1.2

What is structured blogging, and what are its advantages? According to the web site:

Each post type will look different from others, which provides variety to your blog. But the best part is that your structured blog posts stand a much better chance of being found and read, because search engines and aggregators will pick up the content easier.

In other words, reviews (to take just one of the available categories) will have their own entry form that asks for some metadata such as publisher, date, rating, and so on. Review posts will also have their own template and style sheet, and the html that results will include useful information for passing spiders and bots.

The microcontent is in agreed formats, and data across the web becomes more structured, more interchangable and more searchable. Everybody wins.

Apparently though the last fifteen months has seen the world fail to get set on fire by its enthusiasm for this. Most of the arguments that I have read suggest that this is because people find the extra effort too much of a chore.

In June 2006 Kimbro Staken, one of the original Broadband Mechanics who programmed the plug-ins, claimed that there would soon be a rebirth for structured blogging because PubSub had ceased operations, and their feud with Technorati had been a huge and confusing diversion for everyone who had been trying to push ideas about structured blogging forward.

On August 25 he posted again because there was an update to the plug-in (although this is not mentioned on the site itself). He wrote that:

From my perspective, work on Structured Blogging has slowed considerably. I had big plans for it and we were working on a number of projects at Grid7 that were being built upon the concept. Unfortunately, while I am still optimistic that there will eventually be real value in the publishing of Microcontent, we had to conclude that we were way ahead of the game in trying to base parts of our business upon it. That, coupled with our tremendous excitement about our JumpBox project has led us to redirect our energies.

Ah ha! It wasn’t just the real or imaginary problems between PubSub and Technorati then, was it? So: betamax or not, that is the question.

I will begin to use the structured blogging plug-in because it (or something very like it) adds another important component to my ongoing memi project, and I want to see it working. And like a telephone network, or any network for that matter, it will only work if enough people join in to make it feasible to call it a network.

Once I have the memi theorised, documented and available for download, I will probably email Marc Canter and Kimbro Staken to see if any of this makes any sense to them, or piques their interest in any way.

VHS, anyone?