Mashups need microformats

Mash potatoes need bangers like mashups need microformats. Ok, not the best analogy in the world, but still. Mashups hold the much-vaunted promise of personalized, tailored services that might conceivably actually be what people want to use a particularly large problem on the mobile. These two posts clearly demonstrated to me the importance of structured data in enabling mashups, and the non-coincidental fact that most mashup examples show Google Maps since the address format is ready structured.

With that in mind, two more promising areas to go next with mashups in my view would use existing structured data: music (CD metadata is abundant) and people (telephone number as contact, until FOAF or similar makes headway). On top of that, general support for open microformats should clearly be seen as an elevated priority.