For those who like (to argue about) semantics, HTML5 is fantastic. Old presentational elements now have new semantic meanings, there’s a slew of new semantic elements for us to argue about, and we've even ind a riot or two. But that's not all! Also in HTML5 is microdata, a new lightweight semantic meta-syntax. Using attributes, we can define nestable groups of name-value pairs of data, called microdata, which are generally based on the page’s content. It gives us a whole new way to add extra semantic information and extend HTML5.
"Sometimes, it is desirable to annotate content with specific machine-readable labels, e.g. to allow generic scripts to provide services that are customised to the page, or to enable content from a variety of cooperating authors to be processed by a single script in a consistent manner.
For this purpose, authors can use the microdata features described in this section. Microdata allows nested groups of name-value pairs to be added to documents, in parallel with the existing content.
W3C microdata specification Read more ....