{
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    "title" : "The Content Corner: A World Without Web Pages |Digital.gov",
    "description": "The Content Corner: A World Without Web Pages",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2015/03/16/the-content-corner-a-world-without-web-pages/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"The Content Corner: A World Without Web Pages","summary" : "Imagine a world without Web pages, only intelligent, self-assembling chunks of content waiting to respond to your needs. The page is irrelevant, there may be no context beyond what is included in your content. The content has to survive on its own, perform its goals on its own. Originally when creating content, you would take","date" : "2015-03-16T11:10:48-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"tyrus-manuel" : "Tyrus Manuel"},"topics" : {
        
            "content-strategy" : "Content strategy",
            "search-engine-optimization" : "Search engine optimization"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2015-03-16-the-content-corner-a-world-without-web-pages.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2015/03/2015-03-16-the-content-corner-a-world-without-web-pages.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2015/03/2015-03-16-the-content-corner-a-world-without-web-pages.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2015/03/2015-03-16-the-content-corner-a-world-without-web-pages.md","slug" : "the-content-corner-a-world-without-web-pages","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2015/03/16/the-content-corner-a-world-without-web-pages/","content" :"\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2015/03/600-x-415-Global-Communication-and-Data-Concept-Symbols-Robert-Churchill-iStock-Thinkstock-493540889.jpg\"\n    alt=\"Global Communication and Data Concept Symbols\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eImagine a world without Web pages, only intelligent, self-assembling chunks of content waiting to respond to your needs. The page is irrelevant, there may be no context beyond what is included in your content. The content has to survive on its own, perform its goals on its own. Originally when creating content, you would take into account the things that surround it on that page; they give it additional context and relevance. What if you strip all that away and all you have is a title, intro, and body? Or a title and a snippet or chunk? Or a title and an image…can your content survive on its own?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy imagining this post-Web page world, my hope is that it helps our community better grasp and become stronger advocates for the critical work that lies ahead.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"gotta-keep-em-separated\"\u003eGotta Keep ‘Em Separated\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe origins of the post-Web page world can be found in the works of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_W._Tunnicliffe\"\u003eWilliam W. Tunnicliffe\u003c/a\u003e, who is credited with first espousing the importance of separating content from its presentation layer in 1967. Jump ahead to the rise of the Web content management system (CMS), and this concept began to gain traction among Web designers and content creators. However, we focused our attentions on the back-end only and not the front-end. We (sort of) used the CMS to separate content from the design (from a content creator standpoint) only to fuse the two back together for the user. And in all honesty, content creation remained focused on the end product which was the site. In fact, from my experience back in what might have been the early days of CMS, it seemed the main focus was making sure no one used any wacky HTML styles (like making the text red) as opposed to a true strategy of separating content from design. Separating the two was absolutely the right thing to do, but it has taken the maturation of a variety of technologies to allow us to \u003cstrong\u003efully\u003c/strong\u003e separate the content from the design or the site entirely. Social media platforms have driven the separation from the front-end and is now forcing changes to the back-end and the content creation process.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"a-change-in-perspective\"\u003eA Change in Perspective\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2015/03/600-x-350-Ty-Manuel-page-and-content-models-graphic.jpg\"\n    alt=\"Content graphic\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis full separation is inherent in the concept of \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/topics/content-strategy/\"\u003eadaptive design\u003c/a\u003e and the much-referenced \u003ca href=\"http://www.programmableweb.com/news/cope-create-once-publish-everywhere/2009/10/13\"\u003eCOPE\u003c/a\u003e developed by NPR. The article on COPE was published in 2009, so just as with the initial advances of the content and presentation layer concepts, these changes take time. Sometimes a change in perspective—looking at what is being taken away (the website) as opposed to what needs to be added (structure)—can help a concept’s progress.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJumping ahead and visualizing the natural course of today’s trends can also help to shift our efforts and focus away from building new or better websites and towards building better content.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"better-content--structured-content\"\u003eBetter Content = Structured Content\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf we embrace the post-Web page world then we have to fully concentrate on structure and content because we realize that those items are all we will have. In fact, this future makes it easier to agree, as \u003ca href=\"http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/structure-first-content-always\"\u003esome have suggested\u003c/a\u003e, that structure should be given a higher priority than the content itself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpeaking of structure, I am not purposefully glossing over it in this column, but deferring to those who have already given us all a good foundation. Holly Irving at the National Institutes of Health and \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/topics/content-strategy/\"\u003eso many of our other peers\u003c/a\u003e have done some fabulous work in this area, stressing the importance of using:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMetadata,\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://gsa.github.io/Open-And-Structured-Content-Models/index.html\"\u003eOpen and structured content models\u003c/a\u003e, and\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTagging.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe are not there yet, but the day is rapidly approaching where almost all content will be retrieved via social media or sharing, and its origin is completely irrelevant. Or maybe we’re already there and Web pages and Google search results are only hanging around as legacy containers because all this stuff we are sharing and tweeting has to have some original home.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFairly new features such as \u003ca href=\"https://dev.twitter.com/cards/overview\"\u003eTwitter Cards\u003c/a\u003e are just another example of the continued irrelevance of an actual website. By adding the Twitter card code to your existing site, you are actually improving your site’s ability to be irrelevant and setting your content free. It must be able to live on its own and move freely through whatever platform it encounters and needs to be displayed upon. Maybe that platform and display will be a Web page, but most likely in the near future it won’t be.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you want to learn more about surviving in the post Web page world, I recommend this \u003ca href=\"\n\"\u003eupcoming webinar on structured content\u003c/a\u003e. If you want to share your own experiences or continue this conversation (or suggest future topics for The Content Corner), leave a comment below or find me on Twitter \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/tyrusman\"\u003e@tyrusman\u003c/a\u003e.\u003cem\u003eYou’ve just finished reading the latest article from our Monday column, \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/topics/content-strategy/\"\u003eThe Content Corner\u003c/a\u003e. This column focuses on helping solve the main content issues facing digital professionals, including producing enough content and making that content engaging.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}