Chapter 4. Defining Relationships: XFN

In the last chapter, we examined how to define links using rel-based microformats and VoteLinks, which uses the rev attribute. Now we will focus on using the rel attribute for links in order to define social relationships.

What Is XFN?

XFN (XHTML Friends Network) is another elemental microformat—it uses just one attribute-value pair—that defines link relationships. But unlike the rel-based microformats, which describe relationships of href destinations to pages, XFN describes social relationships among people.

Developed by the Global Multimedia Protocols Group (GMPG), XFN evolved in response to the blogroll trend, where content authors publish links to other sites they recommend. Often these blogrolls ...

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