From Internet-on-a-Disk #16, May/June 1996
On the Internet, both content providers and users want control of the look and feel of how information is presented. They are both willing to pay extra to have that control , and software developers can make money from both sides.
Content providers typically would like the same kind of control that is available with a printed page -- selection of typeface and size of type, and placement and size of graphics -- the total layout. They value the visual context in which content is presented, and they are used to paying graphic artists to provide them with just the look they want, and building their brand identity around a particular look.
But the screen of a computer monitor is not the same as printed paper.
Identical images can be printed on millions of pieces of paper; but computer users have monitors of different sizes and shapes, with different abilities to display color. So it is only natural that users want to adjust the presentation of the content to suit the capabilities of their screen display. And even better, they like to be able to search, save, cut-and-paste, and manipulate the material -- making full advantage of the intelligence of their computers, providing capabilities that were impossible with plain dumb paper.
Plain vanilla HTML, with the design goal of accommodating a wide range of desktop systems, put much of the look and feel in the hands of the user. Now extensions to .HTML, particularly those advanced by Netscape, are putting much more control in the hands of the content provider. For example, features like "frames" allow the content provider to insert advertising material in ways that keep it visible on the screen even as you scroll forward. But many users will find that approach offensive and will want to regain control of what they see on their screen. That immediately opens an opportunity for others to write code to disable frames and other such advertising-oriented features and sell that capability to users as an add-on to their browser software.
Hence we see a creative tension in Internet software development projects -- a gentle tug-of-war, in which each development opens opportunities for new developments.
Consider, for example, Acrobat, which some content providers already use as an alternative to .HTML, which gives them considerable control of the layout and puts handcuffs on users, preventing changes. If Acrobat or any other presentation-oriented format becomes more widely used I would expect growing market demand for counter-measures -- for software that enables users manipulate those files that were intended to be inalterable.
Another aspect of the same tug-of-war appears in the design of Web sites. While plain vanilla .HTML put much of the look and feel of the individual page in the hands of the user, the content provider could control the user's experience at the Web site through the site structure and the use of hyperlinks. And software developers seized that opportunity, providing tools to help content providers to that easily and well. Now Digital's search service, AltaVista, provides full-text search of the whole Web and newsgroups, with powerful tools to narrow your searches in valuable ways. And this new capability allows the user to bypass a Web-site's carefully crafted structure -- not going through the front door, not following the hyperlink paths, but rather going straight to the sought-after information. Users love this new freedom and control. And software developers will find that it opens new business opportunities for them to provide more control, once again, to the content providers.
For example, the AltaVista capability should increase demand for software that lets a Web site provide individualized experiences for users, such as personalized pages created on the fly based on user profiles. Sites that use that approach will provide users with reasons for once again coming in through the "front door" rather than just drilling in anywhere, looking for a single nugget of content. By creating an environment that gives the user added value, the content provider regains control of the context -- temporarily, until the next pull in the user's direction.
So what comes next? I'd expect users to pay for the software and/or services that will give them personal agents, which can provide them with the personalized content they want in a context they define for themselves.
So Internet software development advances, providing ever more capability, but with this gentle rocking tug-of-war, back and forth between providers and users of content, an ever-growing series of opportunities.
Date: 26-JAN-1996 18:26:12.75
Many years ago I was lucky enough to take a course through the University of Santa Cruz called "Design of Online Information Systems". The course pre-dated the Web, but was very valuable to me and greatly influenced my thinking about Web site design.
The course stressed that there are two types of information or two types of documents:
There is absolutely no value in the layout or presentation of the SPD.
The annual report on the other hand is largely presentation oriented.
There is very little real content in the annual report. Instead, focus is placed on the layout, look'n'feel and tone of the report. Is it confident? Is it approachable? Etc. These two example are extremes and a lot of information falls somewhere in between -- structure/content is important, but layout and presentation can/does add value. But still, the interesting question is "Does the value of the information stand on it's own without the presentation?"
HTML was originally oriented toward the structure of the information.
Acrobat was oriented toward the presentation of information. Many people (most notably Netscape) have focused on adding non-standard presentation control into HTML. That has, in my opinion, further blurred and confused the issue. There is a significant effort underway in the Web community to introduce style sheets to HTML documents.
The goal of this effort is to, once again,
separate the structure of the document from the presentation of
the document. Style sheets are the only thing left that will
hold together the disintegrating HTML standard and allow the Web
to evolve in a healthy way. As my friend Erik Goetze reminds
me... "What we do to the Web, we do to ourselves."