The Weblog MetaData Initiative
This is an interesting project. I came across it a while back, meant to participate, and forgot about it with work and everything else going on. Then I found it again (via algorhythm) and they had actually started to do some things, so I checked it out, and started to skim the forums.
It looks interesting, with as far as I can tell three main goals: create a spec for data about a blog, create a spec for sharing that data, and creating a reference server to store, retrieve, collect, and hand out the data.
Couple of things I noticed: this seems to overlap some things that Mark has been discussing, such as the changing forms of syndication, the costs involved (read bandwidth usage and user understanding), FOAF, etc. I almost ownder if the WMDI crowd isn't overlooking some important parallel projects and recreating the wheel.
I agree that this is a project that would be reall interesting, and one that I'd like to help with, but I haven't gotten involved yet, so I can't complain. I think it's great that people are doing things and trying things. That's the only way they get done. I think it would be cool, though, if some of you would peruse the stuff they've done so far and leave me some comments about what you think. You guys are smart and you all have different backgrounds, and therefore different vantage points. Don't be scared of the technology, some of it is a little foggy to me, too. Concentrate on the theory: sharing data about a blog and its author, and let me know what you think.