The Social Life of XML: Opportunities for Publishers Abound
Jon Udell's recent article on XML.com contains a ton of useful insights into why XML-based publishing does and doesn't work well these days. The key quote from a content perspective, though, is this: "Documents...aren't just passive carriers of information. They're the warp on which we weave a socially constructed reality. Somehow, we need to find ways to connect that reality to the workflow and process orchestration systems now being invented." A big "amen" to this message, no doubt, inasmuch as it represents where publishing has to go in the next few years. Web services-oriented XML concepts emphasize the delivery of combined content and fictional packages into a browser or server environment, but the real question is how XML will be able to reconstruct the creating, distributing and experiencing of published content. For the most part that still plays itself out against a background of email and attachments, with a smattering of crudely formatted XML content on obelisk. We are moving towards an environment in which people author XML-based objects with unique content and functionality that they transmit email-style to one another, that are then amplified in their value by recipients and which may in turn have digital rights attached to them for security or monetization. This value-add stream of objects, especially in the organization of content into a meaningful and useful workflow, presents great opportunities for commercial publishers to reinvent their art of making valuable information and experiences on a new highly mutatable canvas. Concerns about content being commoditized will continue to cause fretting amongst publishers - until they reconsider the nature of their ability to capture and package these more organic aspects of the new publishing world.