A couple of weeks ago Madgex had a visit from HM Revenue & Customs to review our PAYE tax payments. While in the office they informed us that providing cake on a Friday maybe a taxable benefit. We received this judgement by letter.

“Friday cake The provision of cakes on a Friday is a different matter altogether. As I understand the position, the company provides cakes for all staff generally on a Friday. What is crucial here is that the meal (cakes) is provided to staff generally, its cost is reasonable in scale and in this instance free for staff. As such the provision of the Friday cakes under the circumstance described do not create a chargeable benefit in accordance with Section 317 Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003(ITEPA 2003). I have used the definition of a meal from the Pocket Oxford Dictionary 1972 Reprint as being ‘taking of food’. If I am incorrect in that regard relief will be available under the departments guidance for dealing with trivial benefits. There is no monetary limit to determine what is a trivial benefit. In essence a chargeable benefit will arise on the provision of cakes however, it is deemed trivial because it is perishable and/or consumable.

I am of the opinion that the cakes provided on Fridays to all staff qualifies for relief under Section 317 ITEPA 2003 and also satisfy the trivial benefit criteria. As such the department will not seek to bring that benefit in to charge. Therefore the company can continue to provide cakes to all staff in the same way as the past without the need to declare the benefit or pay any Class 1A National Insurance.”

We are now considering renaming “Cake Friday” to “Section 317 ITEPA 2003 Friday” in thanks of the enlightened decision of Revenue & Customs. Although we were wondering how they could calculate the national insurance tax due for a slice of cake.

As the ideas of social media extends into the design of many modern websites, the addition of user profiles and friend lists are becoming more common. So what is the best practice for making your social network data portable with mircoformats.

Marking-up profiles and friend lists with mircoformats to any site is a relatively simple HTML coding process and involves the use of hCard and XFN. If you are not yet familiar with mircoformats I would recommend reading microformats.org/wiki/ for a quick overview.

Profiles

Most social network sites follow a standard architecture which has a profile page for each user, often with an easy to remember URL. The information about a user on this page should be marked-up with hCard.

Where you have additional pages containing other user information such as friends list you should link to them using the XFN mircoformats rel="me" attribute. The use rel=”me” will tell any parser that the linked page is also about this user

[sourcecode language="html" wraplines="true"] /> Your friends /> [/sourcecode]

Often friends list can be so long that you need to use pagination and break them into several pages. You should also mark-up the pagination links with rel="me next" and rel="me prev".

[sourcecode language="html" wraplines="true"] /> Page 2 /> [/sourcecode]

Using rel=”me” to link to profiles on sites allows for a parser to create a consolidated identity from many different sources.

Defining the representative hCard

Often you will find that a profile page will end up with more than one hCard. There could be a compact friends list that uses the hCard-XFN pattern or other content which carries hCard mark-up such hAtom. The representative hCard concept, defines how to mark-up an hCard so that a parser can identify it as representing the profile owner. There are two patterns:

The first is an hCard where the uid, url attribute and the page source url all have the same value.

 />
   
      Glenn
      Jones
   

The second is where rel=”me” is on the same link as class=”url” />

   
      Glenn
      Jones
   

Friends lists

Traditionally, XFN has been used to define relationships with friends. XFN is a simple mircoformat that allows you to represent these human relationships using rel attribute on hyperlinks.

Jeremy Keith

Although XFN can describe relationships well, it lacks the richness of hCard which is more suited to describing information such as names. The mircoformats community have started to promote the use of the joint hCard-XFN design pattern to take advantage of this. Below are the three most commonly used patterns.

1. A text list of friends full names />

   
      Jeremy
      Keith
   

2. A group of icons with no visible text /> When using icons without text, the alt attribute can be used to define the fn (formatted name) of the friend. />

3. A group of icons with a username marked-up as a nickname /> If you wish to use usernames rather than a full name you can change the image attributes to define a nickname. />

I would always try and display the full name as visible text. One of the fundamental concepts of mircoformats is not to hide your data. That said, all three patterns will work.

Mapping relationship values

You will often have to create a mapping of values between your sites and XFN. If your system does not differentiate the strength of a relationship, use the default rel="acquaintance".

Trying out your mark-up

I have built a portable social network parser which can be used to test your mark-up. There is a public API on the backnetwork labs site which can produce either XML or JSON. There is also a demonstration of how a registration page could consume a site marked-up with mircoformats.

Note

This is an area of ongoing development, so some of this information may change as the portable social network concepts mature. Its always best to check the mircoformats wiki.

After 14 months of talking about portable social networks at various events from SXSWi to a small geek dinner, I have finally found the time to build a working example.

ufXtract’s portable social network parser is a combination of the ufXtract microformats parser and a spider which follows rel=”me” links. It has been designed to extract profiles and friends lists from social networks and other sites which have microformats support. The parser returns two main collections of data, all the rel=”me” links and any hCard-XFN patterns.

The parser API /> http://lab.backnetwork.com/ufXtract-psn/

A demo using JavaScript and JSON /> http://lab.backnetwork.com/ufXtract-psn/demo01.htm

The Parser

You can restrict the parser to a single domain or spider across the whole web. Currently, there are limits to the number of pages which will be parsed. Each collection item is given an additional source-url attribute to identify its origin

There is support for both XML and JSON output, for both client and server-side development.

The parser also uses a version of the representative hCard concept, which tries to identify the hCard representing the profile owner. The implementation is a little more complex than described on the microformats wiki as it extends over multiple pages and domains. This means you may find multiple representative hCards from one call to the API, but there should only ever be one per a URL.

I believe there are a number of different ways that this functionality could be designed into web sites. So I have provided a simple interface design to demonstrate one possibility. It’s a bit of a homage to the getsatisfaction.com registration page with a few extra twists. I would like to thank my co-worker James Wragg who created the JavaScript for the demo.

Of the sites listed on the demo last.fm and ma.gnolia.com return the best results. The other sites have differing levels of portable social network support. It also works well against blogs such as adactio.com or tantek.com that are marked-up with rel=”me” . It’s worth trying out the two depth search levels.

Pages not parsing

You may find on some sites like twitter.com only certain pages are parsed. These sites often have good microformats support, but parts of their functionally are locked behind logon’s. The parser does not support authenticated sessions as this would mean asking the user to pass me their log-in details which is a really bad idea. If I can lay my hands on a good Open-ID and/or OAuth C# libraries, I will try and implement some different types of authentication.

Research

This is all research work still under development, I placed it on the web for others to experiment with and to help foster discussion. I hope you enjoy playing with this.

ufXtract is a new microformats parser I have built to help explore the real world issues of creating portable social networks. Although I have previously designed a number spiders that can find the most common hCard and XFN structures, this is my first full blown parser. It has been built from the ground up to take configuration objects which allow the parsing of different microformats or POSH patterns. It was important that I could parse more general patterns such as the joint hCard-XFN being promoted by the microformats community for use with friend’s lists.

http://lab.backnetwork.com/ufXtract/ /> Now superseded by later version/site http://ufxtract.com/

After some further testing I am going to start to produce a number of portable social network demo’s and posts. This should also provide others with experimental API’s. By sharing this early work I hope in some way to add to the important technical and architectural discussions that are taking place.

I have already added hCard-XFN, rel=”me”, rel=”next” and hAtom to the parser. These are the four cornerstone microformats/patterns required to gather profile and content from other social networks. Although for technical/speed reasons ufXtract is currently only parsing the hEntry sub-element of hAtom.

The component also contains extendable output options, so far, I have built a simple text format for debugging, JSON and XML for building services. For the more technically minded ufXtract is a .net component written in c#. It uses a combination of DOM structures and xPaths. It can typically parse a page in 50-200ms.

At the moment, I am building a test suite to fine tune the components’ compliancy. It still has some small issues with most of the compound microformats, which I am trying to address. If you have any comments or want to point out issues please add them below, I would like as much feedback as possible.

Few weeks ago I watched Tantek Çelik give a demonstration of the Plaxo open social graph which is basically a rel="me" spider. It reminded me how powerful practical demonstrations are at communicating key concepts.

So I have built lab.backnetwork with the idea of constructing a number of service based interfaces which are practical demonstrations of key concepts that are currently under discussion.

I am really interested in focusing on the portable social network area, so I have start with a very simple example of XFN pagination using rel="next". I am hoping to fellow this with a second interface which can parse the XFN/hcard pattern.

XFN pagination interface /> Given any Url it will parse XFN relationship links within a page and then fellow any additional links that have the rel="next" attribute. I have limited system to only spider 20 pages at a time. I have provided two set of test pages with different pagination patterns.

http://lab.backnetwork.com/xfnpagination/

Simple pagination design pattern where the user is viewing pages 2 of a set.

Pages: 1
2 3

The interface will work with any site, but at the moment there are very few if any site which use rel="next".

Madgex hosted the first Barcamp Brighton over the weekend, I think it was a really special event. Although I spent most of my time trying to make things run as smoothly as possible, I still sat in on a number of talks and some how managed to join Tantek and Jeremy to discuss portable social networks.

Unlike commercial conferences, everyone who attends Barcamp has to give a talk. This gives the event a uniquely friendly atmosphere. The sessions are passionate and often some of the most informative I have been to. I honestly think I have learned more at the Barcamps than most of the larger conferences I attend.

As Jeremy put it “food was superb and the presentations were fantastic.”

The Madgex offices made a great venue, the old building with lots of odd spaces seemed to work well. We had to clear out four offices and rewire our network for the event, but the effort was so worth while.

So many people helped to make the event a success, Andy, Matt and Paul who organised the whole thing and a large number of Madgex staff gave their free time to help. Then Dave Phelan from Pier to Pier who just turned up on the day, created a wi-fi network for us. Of course it’s the participation that makes a great Barcamp.

The food was fantastic, the sponsors did us proud, from a beautiful Mediterranean buffet to sushi, we all ate like kings.

I am currently trying to capture all the sessions onto the electronic schedule grid on the Barcamp Backnetwork sites. If you gave a talk it would be great to write a little outline and/or upload your slides.

So thanks to everyone who came and hopefully we can do it all again soon.

Food was provide by: /> Saturday Breakfast: Nixon McInnes /> Saturday Lunch: Future of Web Apps /> Saturday Dinner: BT Osmosoft /> Sunday Breakfast: Microsoft /> Sunday Lunch: Realmac Software /> Snacks, drinks & water: Inuda Network

I have been busy over the last few months helping to organise Brighton’s first ever Barcamp on 8-9 Sept. I am really looking forward to what I am sure is going to be a great event.

For those who have not been to a Barcamp before it’s, an un-conference, usually held at the weekend. It’s referred to as an un-conference, because everyone who goes along participates equally, that means being a speaker as well as an attendee. It’s a community driven event to encourage people to share and learn from each other.

It’s great that Madgex has been able to provide the space for the event. In conjunction with our sponsorship of the d.construct conference it shows how strongly we are committed to supporting the local web community.

Interest in the event has been amazing all the places went in 20 minutes. I only wish we could have provided more places. As it is we have reorganised the whole office layout to create the right type of spaces. The moving men are coming on Thursday to help us out.

Over the last few days I have been asked a lot of questions so I thought I would try and answer a few. We will also be sending more detailed emails to everyone who has a place in the next couple of days.

Saturday /> We are starting the day a little later to allow for those people who have over done things at the D.construct party the night before. So Registration/Breakfast is between 10:00 and 11:00 and the last session will finish at 20:15.

Sunday /> The sessions will start at 10:00 and the event will close at 17:30.

Staying over /> You will be able to stay over at our offices on Saturday night; this is a big part of the events culture. Just bring a sleeping bag and camp mat as you’ll be sleeping on the floor.

Rooms /> We will have five rooms for presentations they will vary in size taking between 20-40 people. Each room will have a video projector, please remember to bring any special laptop to VGA converter/cables for the projectors you may need.

Networking /> Having been to lots of events recently where the wi-fi just did not work, we are providing switches in every room where people can connect to the internet using a cable.

It always takes me so long to absorb SXSW. It seems so large, 8 tracks at once over a very full 4 days. As with last year I did gain a lot from the event, although I do think that some of the panels did not work so well. Personally I much prefer a more presentational style of delivery. Panels need a certain type of chemistry and it is often hard to find even among people who are excellent individual speakers. That said I do think there are many other benefits to the panel format and its part of what makes SXSW feel like an inclusive event.

This year I helped out on the microformats panel “The Growth and Evolution of Microformats” with Tantek, Frances and Mike.

I think it went well. Tantek did the history of microformat’s through t-shirts, it had to be seen to be understood. Mike did a very impressive talkon Operator which is developing into a great tool. Jeremy Keith joined us about half way through, as it is now a tradition for him to be a guest on the SXSW microformats panel. Frances covered the all important community component of microformat development.

So here are some of my favourite sessions. Marked up with hReview and hEvent of course.

This weekend at Barcamp London 2 I did a talk on the more advanced ideas of how microformats can be used in web applications. The talk was based in part on the WebDD session I did, but this time I really tried pushing the concepts of portable social networking and the conscious development of microformat API’s.

As the hearts and minds battle to promote microformats is making ground. A lot of the people at these events are already aware of microformats, so I am moving more to talking about the next step: practical real world applications.

I have uploaded the slides which I have licenced under Creative Commons. To a certain extent, the slides will only make sense if viewed alongside some coherent notes of the talk. I have already written up some of my views on portable social networking and hoping to get around to writing about the other subjects soon.

During my recent talk at WebDD I discussed using RSS as a means for distributing structured content within microformats. So over the weekend I thought it was time for a practical demonstration.

The WebDD backnetwork site allows users to create reviews about the event. What I have done is to add a hReviews parser to the RSS aggregator. If a blog post created by a delegate is both tagged with the event name and it contains a hReview it is now added to the reviews section of the site automatically.

Once it was in place it immediately found hReviews in post by Rob Crowther and Ross Dargan adding them directly into the reviews section. I am pleased with the functionality; as it is in line with the original ethos of backnetwork which was to leave content ownership with the delegates.

The parser is very simple as there is implied relationships between the review, ownership and the event. I created it to only gather the information I needed. I could of built something more complex, but it was not required for this task.

This is an interesting way of passing information it creates a loosely coupled syndication between sites. I think it’s worth further investigation.