Chapter 4. Content Syndication

T he Web is many things to many people but, for publishers and authors, it is another media comparable to print, radio, and TV. Don't get me wrong, I recognize that the Internet has unique characteristics, but its reach is comparable to other popular media.

As proof, look at initiatives by existing publishers to offer their content online (visit http://www.informit.com), the emergence of new publishers (such as http://www.earthweb.com), and, of course, the growing involvement of authors (such as my own http://www.marchal.com).

Furthermore, a growing number of companies, who are not necessarily publishers, use their Web sites to distribute information, articles, and reports (such as http://developer.iplanet.com).

However, the media is still young and changing. At the peak of the rivalry between Microsoft and Netscape, the so-called "browser war," Web fashion was changing every six months. We are now enjoying more stability, but, mark my words, the browser war is about to start again with new actors. And this time, it will be more painful for the under-prepared.

According to the W3C, non-desktop browsers might account for as much as 75% of all surfers by 2002. Non-desktop browsers include mobile phones, PDAs (such as the PalmPilot), and WebTV.

Most of these devices simply won't use HTML. During the browser war, designers could at least rely on some level of commonality between the two major browsers. This won't be the case anymore because mobile phones use a special language, Wireless Markup Language (WML), which is incompatible with HTML.

What to do? Should content providers (publishers, authors, and companies) limit themselves to either HTML or WAP? Should they support both formats? Should they prepare for even more formats?

Developing original content (articles, books, reports, and so on) is expensive. To offset the cost, content owners want to distribute their content as widely as possible. Ideally, it should not matter whether the reader uses a PC, a mobile phone, or another device.

In this chapter, we will see how XML helps address this challenge. As you know, XML's roots are in the publishing industry, and that heritage guarantees that there is no lack of quality tools for publishing problems.