When Ted Nelson coined the word hypertext in the early
1960s, he intentionally defined it as "non-sequential writing."
Likewise, when Doug
Engelbart developed his groundbreaking NLS (oNLine System)
in the mid-1960s, he too envisioned it as a system in which everyone
would participate in writing content, creating links, and contributing
to a world-wide corpus of information. When I built a hypertext
system called Intermedia
at Brown University in the 1980s, the links in it were between
all of the desktop productivity applications. It was a foregone
conclusion that everyone was supposed to be a writer and linker,
as well as a reader. Finally, when Tim
Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web and devised the first
experimental browser, he envisioned a system in which scientists
and others would both browse and contribute.
Yet the commercial World Wide Web and its accompanying browser—the
world's largest hypertext system—has become primarily a
publishing or broadcast medium, where a small number of people
post information for a large number of people to read. This first
wave, which I call the read-only web, treated web users
as passive recipients of information. This was great—it
was the information equivalent of the transcontinental railroad—but
most users could only be passengers; it took considerable skill
to become a conductor. Tools allowed some people to become more
sophisticated and publish websites, but the knowledge required
to get it right was formidable.
As companies grew large internets and intranets, it became exceedingly
important to grant "write" access to a select few, so
that individuals outside the web team couldn't mess up the intricate
set of links and scripts. The web grew largely to be read-only
with transactions, where a regular user's participation was
limited to filling out forms and completing transactions.
Eight years later, the web still serves as a great publishing
mechanism. The universal address space of URLs makes it easy for
anyone to find information that formerly was buried in haystacks
of folders within folders on various corporate servers. Yet how
do PR departments get a new press release up on their site without
going through the webmaster? How does a VP of a corporate division
create her own private dashboard of interesting information and
links? How does a project manager create an intranet portal where
all team members can post items?
Not only is the read-only web too limiting, but it requires an
enormous effort to maintain. With O.
Henry–like irony, the following conundrum appears over
and over again. The folks who paid a website-building company
to create their site continually complain that whenever they want
to make any change—no matter how small—they first
have to call the website company and pay them $100 or $200 to
make the change. At best they feel this is inconvenient; at worst
they call it highway robbery. But if you talk to that website
company, you'll discover that they typically hate making these
changes as much as their clients hate paying for them. Web developers
revel in designing sophisticated sites. They consider themselves
the online equivalent of word-class automobile designers. Hearing
from customers who want the oil changed—even if they stand
to make $100 from doing it—isn't exactly what they want
to do all day. It interrupts the creative work they really want
to do.
Similarly, in corporate departments, not a day goes by when someone
doesn't say, "I gave the web team that article a week ago
and it still isn't up. What's taking them so long? I wish I could
just do it myself." The web team responds, "We can't
let just anyone do it themselves because if they edit the page,
they will mess up all the links and break our site." Here
again, the web team isn't exactly excited about being the gatekeeper
or roadblock, nor are they excited about implementing mundane
tasks—such as posting yet another press release.
Until now.
Welcome to the low-maintenance, readable/writable web.
Macromedia Contribute was created to solve the key problems I've
described:
- It provides self-service site maintenance capabilities that
don't require continual calls to web designers—a key concern
among users and web teams.
- It gives a way for web designers and administrators to create
templates that allow users to update their parts of the website, while providing those administrators with the ability
to lock certain parts of the page so they're read-only, and
the ability to grant access rights to control who edits each
page.
- It permits regular users to set up and maintain their own
pages and sites (for example, on a corporate portal) without
prior training.
Imagine a world in which clients and web consultants, investor
relations departments and web teams are in love with each other.
It could happen!
We believe that Macromedia Contribute starts the next wave of
the web—the low-maintenance, readable/writable web—where
each user can participate actively in what's out there, rather
than be a passive recipient.
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