Microformats turn 2

The microformats blog is celebrating with an entry that points to resources and interesting news. The hCard profile import is particularly interesting and should be of note to all those studying social networks like Facebook and Myspace.

By opening its platform, Facebook commoditizes the social map. Microformats makes it completely free.

For those thinking of building a site with a social network component, there is a strategic risk to building under Facebook. A lot of people could end up supporting microformats to avoid platform lock-in. Riskier still would be building a financially successful application, only to have Facebook create its own in-house version.

Microformats are only 2 and still growing in influence. It’s a trend worth watching, as is Facebook’s opening of its API.