Form and content
As we progress toward multi-channel delivery of news content we become increasingly mindful of the need to keep content separate from metadata that dictates a specific form. In the traditional Web publishing model, the content (e.g. the text of an article) was hopelessly intermixed in HTML files with code for tables and frames and other devices meant to express how the page would be displayed with a browser window.
We are starting to use publishing tools that hold content in channel independent databases until the delivery method is known, at which time content and formatting code are sent as a stream to the user. CSS Zen Garden is a site that showcases the ability of W3C Cascading Style Sheets to specify radically different presentations without altering the source HTML file. Thought-provoking stuff.
posted by StormDawg at 2:05 PM
2 Comments:
My god, where have I been. Last time I stopped here, this was just a dream praying for rain. Now, it's mind altering shit. I'm diggin the deep techo vibe. Give me more, more, more.
How about this, though, if we feed, feed, feed the cells of digital cruisers out there, when do all of these databases just become noise? Who is to make sense of it, and how will your database be more relevant than the next gals?
Two points. First, if we're publishing databases that have not previously been publically available in digital form then we're already providing a valuable service. Freedom of information, baby!
Second (and perhaps seemingly contradictory to my first point), the data we publish, whether compiled by us or wrested from recalcitrant government sources, does not have intrinsic value (see the "data" > "information" > "knowledge" continuum).
If our reporting does not provide context for the significance of its sidebar data then that is our failure. And people like to exalt "the blogosphere" as the Next Wave of Journalism, but I have faith that dedicated professionals can still provide consistently more reliable reporting and relevant analysis than 99% of the ax-grinding hobbyists who happen to have a Blogger account (myself included).
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