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POST Time: Web
Services Standards Step Up The Race for Content
Distribution |
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17
November 2003 |
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The world of Web services is about to
get a lot more interesting now that the
Web Services
Definition Language (WSDL) standards have been approved.
Already a wide alliance of Web services software vendors
are highlighting their capabilities with open source
examples at the
Portlet Open Source Trading Site (POST) to promote the
adoption of standardized Web services. The race for
dominance in Web services has already begun amongst
technologists, but most content providers are still looking
for the starting gate. Given that Web services may prove to
be at least as transformative to their business models as
the Web itself, it's time for content companies to saddle
up and consider how to run - and win. |
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In case you hadn't noticed,
there's a battle brewing for the desktops on which electronic
content is created and consumed, with the eXtensible Markup
Language (XML) family of content formatting standards at the
center of the battle. XML provides a way to deliver and present
content and software services in a platform-independent manner,
embraced by many sectors of business and research to power more
cost-effective management of content and functionality. As in the circles of world powers there
is now the one major XML "super-power" Microsoft
facing a shifting group of alliances between the likes of IBM,
Vignette, SAP, Plumtree, Documentum, BEA and Sun
struggling to control content via XML. Central to this struggle
are the newly approved
Web Services
Definition Language (WSDL) standards, which can be used to wrap together
content and associated function into XML-packaged digital objects that
can be easily integrated and deployed in any number of
environments without requiring software installation or fussy
configuration.
Of course Microsoft uses WSDL to
create hooks into its proprietary programming environment,
while the allied camp chooses more interoperable capabilities.
The key non-Microsoft players have opted recently to create
a showcase of open source WSDL-based Web Services, called
Portlet Open Source Trading Site (POST) to promote the rapid
spread of standards-based Web services. Not much is posted yet
on POST, but it promises to help to jump-start the deployment
of Web services the same way that
Java
programming was brought to life with its own open source tools
early on.
Driven by widely accepted
standards, aggressive software vendors wanting to exploit them
and enterprises eager to cut development and content deployment
costs, Web services are about to be thrust into the limelight,
making it far easier to integrate content from disparate
sources on the desktops of enterprise users than ever before.
Here are some key factors for content creators, distributors
and facilitators to bear in
mind as the era of Web services gets ready to race forward:
- The battle is about content value
in a context. As important as Web Services may be from a
purely technical perspective, the real significance of Web
services is that they make it far easier than ever for a
content provider to make their value known on a user's
desktop in a way that greatly enhances the potential value of
content to both the user and the supplier. With Web services,
embedding content in a sophisticated functionality wrapper
than can be tailored to very specific needs is about as easy
as providing someone with the URL of a Web page. Most
importantly, the functionality can go two ways, providing
both the user and the supplier with interactive capabilities
to communicate with one another and to further tailor the
information and experience on the fly or over time. On its
own, this would be power enough: embedded in a sophisticated
portal environment, the potential for contextualizing and
amplifying content quickly and effectively from a broad array
of sources is going to create a new concept of what it means
to have a "digital library" at your fingertips. Content
vendors will have to become far more adept not just at
understanding the context of user's workflows, but in how to
work in those workflows effectively with a highly interactive
and adaptable content service. Workspaces that can float in
any number of venues as points of content aggregation are
about to take center stage.
- "Uncowing the milk" of content from
a Web service is a different game. Web services and
the methods that hold it together are based on the concepts
of object-oriented programming, in which attributes
(information) and services (functionality) are defined
together and packaged into neat little objects that can be
called upon to have the services produce, store or manipulate
its attributes. Think of one of these objects like a "cow"
from which a service can "uncow" the attribute "milk". When
object-oriented software was something that was installed on
a computer to get at content, these semantic issues were of
little importance to content providers. With Web services,
the ability to deliver a highly standardized and easily
accessed object that includes both content and
functionality begins to call into question just what it means
to provide information and experiences to audiences. The
ability to package content and software separately just got a
little harder - and perhaps a little more pointless.
Long-deferred questions about the marketing relationship
between these two capabilities will now have to be addressed
head on.
- Ironing out digital rights just got
a little more important. Digital rights is a buzzworthy
topic these days, but with the proliferation of Web services
it's going to take yet another leap forward in importance.
There are long-standing methods for dealing with and valuing
content that have not relied heavily on digital distribution
per se for their enforcement. With Web services, it
becomes much harder to ignore digital rights, as the "it"
that one needs to protect is just not digital information
that may have a very limited shelf life and usable context
but functionality responsible for producing that information
and its consumption experience that could be easily adapted
to a wide range of content-producing situations. For those
trying to promote the adoption of a technology like the
sponsors of the POST portal, these kinds of issues are not
terribly important: to technologists, content is still pretty
much about water running through the pipes of technology. But
for those firms that increasingly will rely on the confluence
of content and technology for its profits, being able to
implement digital rights in a manner that can travel with
digital objects around the world easily and effectively will
become a major issue.
As Web services make a rapid transition
from slideware to sellable wares, it's likely that we'll be
seeing a lot more active effort from traditional content
producers and aggregators to get a hand on the reins of power
that are controlling their definition and progress. The race
has just begun - and it's going to get much, much more
interesting very soon. POST time!
-
John Blossom
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