Parsing hReviews from RSS feeds

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.