Tocquigny Advertising and Design

The web, like any technology or aspect of human society, continues to grow and evolve over time. While the current phase may be branded as “Web 2.0” with others eagerly looking forward to “Web 3.0,” the truth is that everything transforms through a natural progression while retaining many core values to prepare it for the future.

The core principles of the internet revolve and were rooted around information accessibility, personal freedom, infrastructure redundancy, and adaptability. The creator of HTML, the markup language for virtually every webpage out there, and its precursor, SGML, both knew that there needed to be core protocols for delivering information that were abstract enough to be malleable over time.

With that in mind, one can view the progression of the web as exactly as it was intended; one can also assume that by adhering to the core principles in their planning cycle for the next round of websites or applications, they will be adequately prepared for whatever form the web takes next.

1. Have consumable content

At first, information was only available in printed books and other forms of traditional media. With the advent of the web, information became available through websites. Today, innovations in technology are creating new media channels (mobile browsers, widgets, social networks, etc.) at a pace that makes it difficult to adapt content for each new platform. Information is now seen as an object in itself; instead of recreating information for every new form of media, there must be a way to take existing information and easily transfer it to other vehicles.

The solution follows the same principle as creating a webpage; your webpage is built in an abstract language that delivers suggestions on how your information should be rendered. Any device that understands those suggestions can take that information and render it accordingly. Your webpages full of your service offerings, messages, and other information are immediately available to computers of all flavors, mobile devices, and other electronic means.

Truly consumable content, however, requires that the same information be delivered in a way that features no rules on presentation. With Really Simple Syndication (RSS), you can deliver any information you want to any device in a way that ensures that the information is not mangled in the same way as it would happen with HTML. Because the presentation device is not consistent (mobile devices, PCs, etc.), and because one cannot determine what device will be used to present the same data in the future, having the option to deliver your content in RSS format ensures that your information can be consumed by any device and rendered in the best way possible. This principle also applies to other abstract content enclosures. If providing for an abstract presentation layer is required for the content, usage of XSLT is encouraged when applicable.

This kind of consumable content encourages information sharing, inherently expanding your present audience, as well as secures your content as being available without additional investment for any device in the future.

Consumable content is the foundation of mashups, and it can be used by third parties -- without extra work on the original content author’s side -- to create applications on new avenues like widgets or gadgets on platforms like Facebook, Google, Apple’s Dashboard, Yahoo!, and many others.

A good example of this can be seen in the Facebook application that we created for World Vision. The news stories that are displayed within the application on users' profile pages throughout Facebook are populated by an RSS feed that World Vision is able to update using a simple web content management system.

Content delivered with RSS has copyright information, links back to the website where images and other media are associated with the content, and is date stamped.

2. Architect the platform as a service

Human ingenuity and continual innovation will keep changing how we view and interact with the web, as well the devices on which we use the various technologies. Webpages are accessed through a protocol called Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which was specifically designed for webpages accessed through a web browser.

But what if a technology emerges that replaces the browser? What if users want to create mashups with your content, aiding your marketing efforts? By only offering your website’s functionality through HTTP with HTML, you are limiting your audience in the present, and most assuredly, limiting your audience in the future.

Technologies such as XML-RPC and SOAP offer a standardized way to access service-oriented information. For example, Google offers their very popular search feature through a normal web browser as well as a SOAP interface. This allows developers to integrate Google’s search capabilities in their own applications without the added overhead of having to deal with the ever-changing landscape of a site’s presentation layer. When Google updates the way their homepage looks, developers who use their HTTP interface and parse the HTML will have to re-tool the way they extract results, while users who use their SOAP interface are left with the same consistent format.

Additionally, platforms such as Facebook and Amazon code their entire sites as a webservice. When you are browsing for products on Amazon, their code is actually calling their own internal services and parsing out the results to display. When you utilize the Amazon webservices as a third-party developer, you’re simply being granted access to the same internally utilized tools.

Amazon, Facebook, and Google are then very prepared to deal with layout changes for their webpages, expanding their audience through third-party developers, and delivering their content on mobile and future devices.

3. Use standards as a way to expand your audience

While the web was built on core standards, much of the code of current webpages is not built according to established best practices; as a result, many sites are incompatible with antiquated or future technologies, various platforms, and even disabled visitors.

Take the example of Target: They were recently successfully sued because their online store was found to not be accessible to the blind. Screen readers had difficulty parsing and communicating the content that was being displayed, and as a result, the experience was virtually impossible for blind customers. In the same way that physical stores must adhere to standards governing handicapped access, online stores may continue to find themselves the target of lawsuits over accessibility issues.

Had Target simply designed their site with these accessibility standards in mind, they would have launched a commercial online experience with the widest possible audience, as well as benefited from good PR.

These accessibility standards do not just benefit the disabled, however, and many such standards exist to accomplish these practical goals:

• Provide a successful experience for disabled patrons
• Allow the presentation layer of the site to degrade gracefully for users with antiquated browsing technologies
• Prepare the structure of the site to adhere to the changing future landscape of the web
• Improve SEO
• Avoid negative PR

Well-formed content can be checked through the official validation service at validator.w3.org, and more information on the official standards for disabled accessibility can be found at section508.gov.

Finally, offering webservices and consumable content all imply that your content can be delivered in a standardized, truly accessible way. It also implies that future services have a standard format to use as a base for converting into other future formats. With these three pillars in play, your content and your website are on the cutting edge of today and well-equipped to handle the future. Syndicating your content, offering it as a service, and adhering to standards means that you care about attracting every possible eyeball to your message, services, or information.