Learn More/Contact > Overview: InfoML and Related Projects
InfoML is an XML-based standard for storing, manipulating, and exchanging data (called content) in structures called infocards. An infocard's content is usually one or more paragraphs of styled text, but it can also be any Internet resource that can be pointed to by a URI.
In addition, an infocard can contain a title, tags, pointers to Internet resources and other infocards, and other useful metadata (including data about the authorship and source of the content). Through the use of pointer data in each infocard, a collection of infocards can represent both multiple "chunks" of content, as well as various relationships between any two such chunks. An infocard can be the "root" of a list, tree, or directed graph of infocards.
InfoML, in addition to being robust enough to handle most users' needs as-is, is also extensible by third parties to meet their special needs. This does not interfere with either the infocard's "standard" data or extensions created by any other third party.
Why InfoML Is Important
It is important to understand that InfoML is not important just because it is expressed in XML. InfoML is important because it is a very rich platform for storing tagged data (including styled text and other media), as well as the connections between them, all in a form that can be stored on the Internet, displayed by browsers, parsed and searched by computer programs, and shared by content creators worldwide. (The previous sentence unpacks into a lot of detail; please contact me for details.)
Many interesting applications can be built on top of InfoML and can share information with each other. In essence, InfoML has the potential to become a fundamental datatype for tagged media for both computers and the Internet, one that opens up meaningful chunks of text (and other forms of data) to sharing, transformation, and reuse.
Goals and Terms of Use
My goal is to put InfoML into the hands of people and companies interested in using InfoML and, optionally, promoting its use. Anyone can use InfoML for any purpose without ever paying any fee of any kind. The InfoML schema is freely available under the licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs License.
Serious developer-users of InfoML will be encouraged to influence its evolution toward a 1.0 version and beyond. Under the right circumstances, I would be willing to transfer control of the XML schema to the right company or institution.
InfoML-Related Projects
Infocard Organizer
I have designed and funded the implementation of a simple GUI-based Java application that enables the creation and editing of infocards. In addition, Infocard Organizer can be used as a simple outliner, and it can apply user-created XSLT files to transform the current set of infocards into various useful forms (e. g., a web page or a DocBook article). Infocard Organizer will be released as open-source software.
Del.icio.us for Ideas
The phrase "del.icio.us for ideas" is a brief elevator speech for an idea that I have for an extremely interesting web-based application. One possible implementation would make it into a research, organizing, and structured-document creation tool. Another possible implementation would make it into a worldwide repository of infomation, ideas, and (possibly) media that people could query and contribute to. This web-based application would be useful to both individual users and groups of people working together.
Any implementation of this idea would enable both users and third-party software to export data as InfoML. For users, this would facilitate the reuse of data in other contexts. For developers, this would enable them to create web mashups and computer-based applications that would benefit greatly from accessing the data inside this web-based application.
In conclusion, this web-based application could offer new ways for users to store, organize, and discover useful information. Giving both users and developers access to the underlying data will make the data more useful and will lead to significant third-party innovation.
Brief Biography
I got my master's degree in computer science in 1976. I was Senior Editor at BYTE magazine from 1979 to 1988, where I wrote cover stories on the original IBM PC, the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, and other computers. While at Apple Computer from 1988 to 1998, I wrote for and edited Apple Directions, a magazine that evangelized Apple technologies to developers. I have used Infocard Organizer for writing assignments and other projects.
To the Reader
I have been working on the technology that is now named InfoML since 2003. It has undergone numerous improvements and one complete redesign, and it is close enough to its eventual 1.0 release to be shown to the outside world.
To be successful, InfoML needs the support of technical people who are interested in critiquing it, improving it, and—eventually—using it. Please tell others who may be interested about InfoML.org. If you are interested in learning more about InfoML or Infocard Organizer, please contact me at the address given on my contact page.
—Gregg Williams, InfoML Architect