XFN Relationship Tags For Designers and Businesses
Posted June 11, 2009 by Gabriel Hurley
I've decided to start adding rel="designer" to the little "Designed by" links that go into sites I work on. That's right.
As the whole XFN movement continues to grow (slowly), I can't help but notice that there's no place in the spec for businesses. Identity is just as crucial for businesses as it is for individuals, and if anything the relationships are even more complex.
Long story short, I'd propose an extension to XFN's adopted set of tags to allow people to define their relationships with businesses and organizations. EDIT: XPN as a concept does (sort of) exist, but it seems to be nebulous with no active development currently.
A few examples might include:
- Employer - To indicate where you work
- Supplier - Who you get your products from (could matter to eco-friendly folks, for example)
- Partner - For groups that work together towards a common goal
And the there's my personal favorite, one which any web designer could appreciate:
- Designer - Indicates who created this website
Best case it catches on. Worst case, nothing breaks and the world goes on its merry way!
you might want to throw your designer proposal into this page in the posh section: http://microformats.org/wiki/existing-rel-values
You might also want to get involved in the actual microformats mailing list. There's some discussion of the tag here: http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006-August/005066.html