Technorati's hCard to vCard service
posted: March 8th, 2007 · by: Sven
When I migrated my blog to Mephisto the other day I jumped at the chance and marked my contact data up as a hCard microformat (which is placed at the bottom of the right column).
Looking for something completely different (namely their blog ping service) I accidentally stumbled across Technorati’s super cool hCard to vCard service.
What this service does is that it converts my hCard to a vCard and download it to the user, nothing less, nothing more. After the download is finished the addressbook opens and the vCard is added to my contacts. (At least, that’s what happening on my Mac. I believe, on other OS something equivalent will happen, does it?)
To “install” this nifty thingy you simply put a plain HTML link to this URL onto a page that includes a hCard. When clicked, Technorati will go and look at the referring page, find the hCard, convert it to a vCard and return it to the user.
Isn’t that just beautiful?
Painless plain simple distributed usefulness.
I think that’s a fantastic example of what microformats are good for.
Oh, by the way. Of course there are several tools to create the hCard markup as well. For example there’s one directly on the microformats homepage. Also, be sure to have a look at this one :)
Zhou Wenhan said September 27th, 2008 at 10:15 AM ¶
Hi Sven,
I am just checking in to see if you would find a new web service that I have created useful. The service is called Shrtcard.com and it provides you a way to create a vCard that is also secure and hidden.
ShrtCards is a simple contact page that you maintain. When you pass out business cards with the ShrtCard code, the recievers can just go online and enter www.ShrtCard/XXXXX to see your contact details. ShrtCard is not searchable nor indexable so only people with the ShrtCard Code can see your contact.
Could you tell me if you would find this useful? Right now if you sign up, you will get a 6 character code for your Shrtcard ID. If you would like, I can change it for you so that it is more readable. i.e. shrtcard.com/SvenAW
– Zhou Wenhan Download My Contacts @ shrtcard.com/wenhan