With all the bruhaha going on about Microsoft’s new Smart Tags feature (esp. in IE6) I have to wistfully note - intead of “Smart-Tags” in IE, Microsoft could have had a PR glory day and been the first to widely distribute a working implementation of XLink, the long-awaited XML-linking spec:
“This specification defines the XML Linking Language (XLink), which allows elements to be inserted into XML documents in order to create and describe links between resources. It uses XML syntax to create structures that can describe the simple unidirectional hyperlinks of today’s HTML, as well as more sophisticated links.”
Had they done this, and left the choice in the hands of the site developer as to including them in a page, they would be on the opposite end of the web-media shit-storm that’s going on now.
