AB Meta

What is AB Meta?

AB Meta is a simple, RDFa-based format for annotating pages that are about things.

A book publisher can use AB Meta to provide information about a book such as the author and ISBN, a restaurant owner can provide information such as the cuisine, phone number and address and a movie reviewer can annotate reviews with movie titles and directors.

The format allows site owners to describe the main thing on the HTML page using standard META headers. The AB Meta format also allows content owners to declare multiple things in each page using standard RDFa notation.

The benefit of AB Meta is that it makes it easy for software to identify things--books, music, movies, recipes, restaurants, wine and more--inside regular HTML pages. With AB Meta, search engines can find and classify pages to help users interact with real things instead of flat HTML pages. Here are more benefits:

Object-centric: Focuses on everyday things that we encounter around the web
Semantic: Upgrades pages to be part of growing Semantic Web
Lightweight: No complex markup, can work without changes to the body of the document
Intuitive: The names of things and attributes are in plain English
Efficient: The meta headers are easy to get to without parsing entire HTML page
Extensible: Additional attributes and concepts are easy to add
Compatible: AB Meta is built using existing RDFa standard

AB Meta Example: Book

AB Meta is best understood through an example. Consider a page that describes a book - a product page or a book review on a blog or a page on a publisher site. A simple example below illustrates how AB Meta can be used by placing the standard meta tags inside of the head element of the HTML page:

AB Meta for this book:

The namespace in the HTML tag declares that AB Meta is present on the page. The HEAD tag says that the page is about a Book and the META tags define the attributes of the book. In the markup above only title and the author attributes are required and the rest are optional. This example should give you a flavor of AB Meta and to learn more please look at the full specification.

Who is using AB Meta?

Several companies have already implemented AB Meta and more implementations are on the way:

	O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, research, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter. See an example book.
	UGO UGO Entertainment has devoted the last 10+ years to serving the Gamer audience. The company's flagship website, UGO.com, and its owned and operated properties provide quality interactive content and editorial for more than 35 million monthly unique visitors around all things central to the Gamer Lifestyle. See an example movie star page.
	blippr blippr is a really easy way to discover, talk about, and organize great apps, books, games, movies, and music. We figure that hey, why not make it easy to talk about and then find even more great stuff to talk about?. See an example video game.
	Zecco Zecco is the first free online brokerage. Zecco allows its members to trade stocks for free provided they have a $2,500 minimum balance. Zecco's social networking platform, ZeccoShare, allows users to post their portfolios and join likeminded groups of investors. See an example stock.
	StockTwits StockTwits is an open, community-powered investment idea and information service built on top of Twitter. The service extracts meaning from Twitter and aggregates messages that are about specific stocks, organizing them into a coherent conversation. See an example stock.
	eBooks About Everything We, at eBooks About Everything, love books. We are thrilled that eBooks are becoming a real force in the book market and we are working to promote e-reading of great books...new and old alike. eBooks About Everything is the place to find eBooks for your digital lifestyle. See an example book.
	Dawdle Dawdle is the gamer's online marketplace - we make it as easy as possible to buy and sell all of your games, systems, and accessories online. We're built from the ground up for gaming, with a 100% guarantee on all of your transactions. See an example gadget.
	The Ultimate Movie Site The Ultimate Movie Site is a movie destination for reviews, ratings, clicks, photos tickets and everything else for movies. See an example movie.
	Tigerbow TigerBow is a gift sending site that helps its users to send actual gifts to virtual places. The point is that now people will have a chance to send real gifts online to a desired recipient in US only by using their email or Facebook profile, without having to know their postal address. See an example book.
	Bookarmy Bookarmy is a social networking website for every sort of reader. Bookarmy is the place to discuss and review books, build reading lists, get the best book recommendations, and where you and your friends, family or classmates can read books together. See an example book.
	Unbridled Books Unbridled Books is a premier publisher of works of rich literary quality that appeal to a broad audience. We want to be able to continue our longtime discussion about what allows a novel to touch our hearts and our minds at once. See an example book.
	BookSwim BookSwim remedies the high cost of owning books by providing a Book Rental service that allows unlimited rentals per month on a monthly subscription plan. See an example book.

Where can I read about AB Meta?

Wired:

New 'AB Meta' Markup Tools Could Create a Smarter Web

ReadWriteWeb:

Adaptive Blue Offers Open Format to Make the Web Smarter

ReadWriteWeb:

A Guide To Contextual Web

SemanticWeb:

AdaptiveBlue Publishes New Markup Format

O'Reilly TOC:

Simplifying Semantic Tagging

BlueBlog:

Introducing AB Meta - Simple Annotation Format for Pages About Things

AB Meta Specification

AB Meta can be used to express a single or multiple objects of the following types:

Apparel, Album, Blog, Book, Gadget, Movie, Movie Star, Recipe, Recording Artist,

Restaurant, Stock, Topics, TV Show, Video Game, Wine

Declaring single object on the page

1. Add the AB Meta namespace declaration to the HTML tag:

<html xmlns:type="http://www.abmeta.org/ns#">

2. Add the typeof declaration to the HEAD:

<head typeof="type:Type">

3. Add the link declaration to the HEAD (optional, defaults to current URL):

<link rel="type:Type" href="URI">

4. Declare each attribute using META tag

<meta property="Type:Attribute Name" content="Value"/>

* Type is one of the object types described above.

* Mutiple listings of the same attribute imply multiple-values.

Declaring multiple objects on the page

1. Add the AB Meta namespace declaration to the HTML tag:

<html xmlns:type="http://www.abmeta.org/ns#">

2. For each object, add the typeof declaration to the DIV:

<div typeof="type:Type"/>

It is strongly recommended, that DIV encapsulates the actual HTML markup for the object.

3. Declare link attribute using a tag like this:

<a rel="type:Type" href="URI"/>

4. Declare each attribute using SPAN tag like this:

<span property="Type:Attribute Name" content="Value"/>

* Type is one of the object types described above.

* Attribute is one of the object attribute described below.

* Value is the value of the attribute.

* Mutiple listings of the same attribute imply multiple-values.

Common Attributes

Attribute	Required	Notes
type:title	yes
type:image	yes
type:description	no	For single object defaults to the description meta tag.
type:tags	no	For single object defaults to the keywords meta tag

album (example)

Header	Required	Notes
album:artist	yes	Allows multiple values.
album:year	no	Format: YYYY

blog (example)

Header	Required	Notes
blog:author	no	Allows multiple values.

book (example)

Header	Required	Notes
book:author	yes	Allows multiple values.
book:isbn	no	10 or 13 digit standard ISBN number.
book:year	no	Format: YYYY

gadget (example)

Header	Required	Notes
gadget:manufacturer	yes	Commonly known name of the manufacturer
gadget:model	yes	Manufacturer specific model number.

item (apparel) (example)

Header	Required	Notes
item:manufacturer	yes	Commonly known name of the manufacturer

movie (example)

Header	Required	Notes
movie:director	yes	Allows multiple values.
movie:starring	no	Allows multiple values.
movie:year	no	Format: YYYY

movieStar (example)

Header	Required	Notes
movieStar:hometown	no
movieStar:birthday	no	Format: MM/DD/YYYY
movieStar:filmography	no	Allows multiple values.

recipe (example)

Header	Required	Notes
recipe:ingredients	yes	Allows multiple values.
recipe:cuisine	no	Allows multiple values.
recipe:calories	no	Format: Number
recipe:servings	no	Format: Number
recipe:time	no	Format: HH:MM

recordingArtist (example)

Header	Required	Notes
recordingArtist:hometown	no
recordingArtist:birthday	no	Format: MM/DD/YYYY
recordingArtist:discography	no	Allows multiple values.

restaurant (example)

Header	Required	Notes
restaurant:address	yes	Format: Street, City State Zip
restaurant:phone	yes	Format: 000-000-0000
restaurant:cuisine	no	Allows multiple values.
restaurant:pricerange	no	Format: $X-$Y.
restaurant:website	no	The home page of the restaurant.

stock (example)

Header	Required	Notes
stock:symbol	yes	Standard US Stock Symbol
stock:sector	no

topic (example)

Header	Required	Notes
topic:disambiguator	no	A word or a phrase that helps disambiguate matching titles.
topic:aka	no	List of also known as toics. Allows multiple values.

tvShow (example)

Header	Required	Notes
tvShow:starring	no	Allows multiple values.

videoGame (example)

Header	Required	Notes
videoGame:manufacturer	yes	Commonly known name of the manufacturer
videoGame:platform	no	Commonly known name of the platform

wine (example)

Header	Required	Notes
wine:winery	yes
wine:grape	yes
wine:region	no
wine:points	no	Format: Number
wine:year	yes	Format: YYYY

Who should implement AB Meta?

AB Meta is simple and beneficial for many web sites, because it makes the content more discoverable. Here are some examples of pages that are a good fit:

Book publishers, book review sites and blogs.
Movie home pages, movie review sites and blogs.
Electronics manufacturers, electronics review sites and blogs.
Record labels, music review sites and blogs.
Restaurant home pages, restaurant review sites and blogs.
Recipe review sites and blogs.
Stock review sites and blogs.
Wineries, wine review sites and blogs.

How is AB Meta Related to Semantic Web?

AB Meta is part of the bigger effort to annotate web content to be machine readable. This effort, broadly known as Semantic Web, was first suggested by Sir Tim Bernes-Lee. AB Meta is part of the so-called bottom-up approach, which is generally considered difficult because it requires the content owners to annotate pages. AB Meta is made simple and easy to implement, so many content owners will be able to support it.

How do I add AB Meta headers to my Wordpress Blog?

There are many Wordpress plugins that allow you to specify meta headers. We recommend HeadMeta plugin by Dougal Campbell.

How do I add AB Meta headers to my Typepad Blog?

Currently you can add custom header to posts only if you are using Advanced Templates.

Can AB Meta be extended or changed?

AB Meta is designed to be extensible. Additional meta data can be provided by adding the attributes that are not part of this specification. If you'd like to let us know attributes that should be made permanent via this spec please email alex [dot] iskold [at] gmail [dot] com.

Get Involved!

This version of AB Meta was developed by Alex Iskold (AdaptiveBlue) with help and support from Peter Mika (Yahoo!). To get involved please email alex [dot] iskold [at] gmail [dot] com