title: Webservice standards and DTDs
body: <p>While brainstorming about six years ago, I had what I thought was a great idea: in the future there could be webservice standards and DTDs that effectively turn the web into a decentralized knowledgebase.  I listed several areas where I thought this could be applied, one of which was:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><strong>For making data avail. directly from a business's website: open hours, locations, and contact phone numbers.</strong> Suggest a web service standard by which businesses have a standard URL extended off the main (base) URL for there website, at which is located a webservice.  That webservice as well has a standardized set of services for downloading a list of their locations, contact telephone numbers, and business hours.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>It's interesting looking back at these notes now since this is <strong>not</strong> how things have evolved.  Instead of businesses putting this information on only their website then letting any search engine or other data aggregator to crawl it, they are updating it separately on their website, their Facebook page, and Google Maps.  Facebook and Google Maps, due to their popularity, have become the solution to the problem I though my idea would solve.</p>
  
  <p>Is the way things are better than the way I thought they could be?  If so then why doesn't my idea fit the reality?  If not then what's holding my idea back from being realized?</p>