Web Standards: Hit-and-Run Victim of Marketing
| Category: Website Design and Development | Date: 2003-10-05 |
Standards Make the Markets. Markets Make the Standards.
Tim Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web into a vacuum. With no contenders, HTTP and HTML were instant standards. Marc Andreesen created Mosaic under the same circumstances and the Web with its graphical user interface became the technological darling of the decade.
Stand-alone standards made it possible for us all to use the Web at will. Now that there is a viable marketplace, all Web site developers are asking themselves the same questions; use HTML+? Use Netscape tables, backgrounds, and dynamic updating? Wait for VRML to be widely accepted or take the plunge?
In the olden days, engineers defined technologies and defended them in front of other engineers to determine the best way to get a job done. Today, the engineers are being overrun by entrepreneurs out to grab the defacto-standard brass ring.
Theres a clash of three cultures in the Internet standards recipe; technicians in search of an elegant solution, Internet inhabitants raised on the belief that information wants to be free, and venture capitalists focused on ROI. These three ingredients live in a global communication blender set to puree and a marketplace oven that is getting hotter all the time. The result is leaving Web site builders with indigestion.
Brave souls writing software for Unix systems had to take sides when the GUI wars broke out. Should they write application front-ends in X-Windows or Motif? The decision was based on the standard with the largest user base. Prior to that, they had to choose between the Berkeley and the AT&T flavor of Unix. This tricky technical question was made easier when AT&T ran a double page ad in Sports Illustrated touting Unix System V. It was the first time the world had seen an ad for an operating system in a non-technical publication.
Web site builders must not create their marketing masterpieces based on the tools at hand. They must strive to "skate to where the puck is going to be." They must imagine a prospective customer taking a VRML tour of their electronic wonderland, admiring the Java applets on display, then dragging, dropping and embedding them into their own applications on the desktop. A virtual cup of caffe OLE.
So when you sit down to decide which tools to use and which standards to back, dont read the specifications, read the IPO prospectus. It no longer matters which technology has the most elegant solution, it only matters which has the largest marketing budget.
About the Author
Jim Sterne stays active as a public speaker and as a consultant, helping each client set Internet marketing goals and determine customer relationship strategies.
Please contact Jim Sterne at (805) 965-3184 or to find out how his talents might help you achieve your marketing objectives. Or to visit his webpage see details below.
jsterne@targeting.com
http://www.targeting.com
Tim Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web into a vacuum. With no contenders, HTTP and HTML were instant standards. Marc Andreesen created Mosaic under the same circumstances and the Web with its graphical user interface became the technological darling of the decade.
Stand-alone standards made it possible for us all to use the Web at will. Now that there is a viable marketplace, all Web site developers are asking themselves the same questions; use HTML+? Use Netscape tables, backgrounds, and dynamic updating? Wait for VRML to be widely accepted or take the plunge?
In the olden days, engineers defined technologies and defended them in front of other engineers to determine the best way to get a job done. Today, the engineers are being overrun by entrepreneurs out to grab the defacto-standard brass ring.
Theres a clash of three cultures in the Internet standards recipe; technicians in search of an elegant solution, Internet inhabitants raised on the belief that information wants to be free, and venture capitalists focused on ROI. These three ingredients live in a global communication blender set to puree and a marketplace oven that is getting hotter all the time. The result is leaving Web site builders with indigestion.
Brave souls writing software for Unix systems had to take sides when the GUI wars broke out. Should they write application front-ends in X-Windows or Motif? The decision was based on the standard with the largest user base. Prior to that, they had to choose between the Berkeley and the AT&T flavor of Unix. This tricky technical question was made easier when AT&T ran a double page ad in Sports Illustrated touting Unix System V. It was the first time the world had seen an ad for an operating system in a non-technical publication.
Web site builders must not create their marketing masterpieces based on the tools at hand. They must strive to "skate to where the puck is going to be." They must imagine a prospective customer taking a VRML tour of their electronic wonderland, admiring the Java applets on display, then dragging, dropping and embedding them into their own applications on the desktop. A virtual cup of caffe OLE.
So when you sit down to decide which tools to use and which standards to back, dont read the specifications, read the IPO prospectus. It no longer matters which technology has the most elegant solution, it only matters which has the largest marketing budget.
About the Author
Jim Sterne stays active as a public speaker and as a consultant, helping each client set Internet marketing goals and determine customer relationship strategies.
Please contact Jim Sterne at (805) 965-3184 or to find out how his talents might help you achieve your marketing objectives. Or to visit his webpage see details below.
jsterne@targeting.com
http://www.targeting.com
Copyright © 2005-2006 Powered by Custom PHP Programming