I usually hate posting twice in one day but since I'm gone for a week after this I figured "What the heck?" 

Plus, this topic is something that worries me greatly (and not for the reasons you might think).  In an article entitled "RIAA: DRM not dead and likely will make a comeback" CNet's Greg Sandoval writes...

Last January, when Sony BMG became the last major recording company to sell DRM-free tracks at Amazon, plenty of observers considered the technology buried. Since then, a growing number of online stores have begun offering at least some open MP3s, including Walmart.com, Zune's Marketplace, Amazon, as well as iTunes.

Not so fast, said Hughes, who predicted that DRM would reemerge in a big way. "I think there is going to be a shift," he told the audience. "I think there will be a movement towards subscription services, and (that) will eventually mean the return of DRM."

Hughes also said that DRM must change so that the public sees it less as a sort of policeman that locks music a way. He would prefer a mode where consumers don't notice DRM at all. "People just want music when they want it," he said. "It's about access. If they get that then they don't care about DRM."

Here's the thing, DRM stays dead if people actually buy DRM-Free music.  Regardless of what they say Record Companies are looking at one thing right now and that is "do sales go up once DRM is removed from Music?"  If the answer is "Yes" you can pretty much say goodbye to DRM.  If the answer is "No" you can expect it to make a comeback. 

That's the thing, Record Companies don't like DRM either.  But they need proof that their customers will act honestly towards them if they kill it off.  That means music lovers actually paying for music.

If you are someone who still uses p2p networks ask yourself where that road eventually leads.  The idea that everyone in the music industry is eventually going to "give in" and give music away as marketing is a pipe dream.  No industry in the history of the world has ever decided to magnanimously surrender their primary revenue stream.  I guarantee you the recording industry isn't going to be the first. 

Given that fact the p2p road can only lead to one thing: even stricter DRM in the future.  Regardless of what people think there is DRM out there that can't be cracked its just the kind that's more restrictive than anything that's come before.   Think machine serial numbers intertwined into the actual music itself (I've seen the tech that could do it).  No one, not even the recording industry, wants that. 

But to avoid it more people need to start paying for their music to prove that customers will respond favorably when companies give them what they want.  Customers demanded DRM be taken away and the companies have responded by doing just that.  Don't those companies now deserve your business? 

Mads Kristensen posted what can only be described as an impassioned plea to ASP.NET developers to embrace the Semantic Web.  Entitled "Wake up ASP.NET developers!" the post practically begs developers to include Microformats in their current and future products.  Here is a quote...

What puzzles me again and again is that only a fraction of web developers use microformats or any other semantic formats. In the light of how easy and useful it is, it leaves me saddened. It is not a duty to implement semantic mark-up; it is a privilege to help drive the future of the web – and with a minimal effort as an added bonus.

So, if you have a website containing user profiles, calendar events or any other structured data, then please tag them up with the appropriate microformat and XFN tags. If you want to do a little more, then FOAF is a good place to start. Remember, it starts with us, the developers, so wake up! (the lack of the word 'please' is not accidental, although appropriate).

First let me say that I'm a huge supporter of the ideas behind the Semantic Web.  Always have been.  In fact, there are very few things that can make me angry but  I still grit my teeth when I think of the hit job that was done on RSS 1.0 (the Semantic Web geared RDF variant of RSS).

But the Semantic Web, like many of these online initiatives, isn't fully thought out.  The problem here is that people love to focus on the fun stuff like functionality but when it comes to the tedious stuff no one wants to volunteer for the job.  So it remains undone which in turn keeps a good idea from being a viable technology. 

Take security for instance.  Microformats, by definition, are a way to make it easier for computers to read and process data.  So what's to stop a spammer from using your Microformat against you?  In an age where most web sites have to use images to display simple e-mail addresses how can anyone suggest putting an hCard (which is the Microformat for a business card) on their site? 

I've brought this up to every hCard proponent I know and have never managed to get a satisfactory response. 

Security isn't the only issue either.  Another is future compatibility between the two disparate Semantic Web camps.  Despite what many think there is no consensus behind Microformats in the Semantic community.  Tim Berners-Lee (arguably the leader of the Semantic Web movement) endorses both Microformats and RDFa encoding even though they do the same thing.  This makes it hard for a developer to implement one side of the equation without fearing a rewrite.

Truthfully there are tons of issues with Microformats that have gone unaddressed.  Difficulty in validating plain xhtml, lack of a standardized approval process for new Microformats, and the difficulty of extensibility are just a few of the dozens of problems out there.

This all brings me back to my original point which is that no one has bothered to look at anything but the fun part of Microformats.  All the other tedious issues have been ignored and those issues are what keep me from embracing Microformats.  If the Semantic community wants that to change they need to address realistic ways of implementing this technology.