Balisage Paper: The Web, the W3C and the Future of Publishing
Liam R. E. Quin
W3C
Abstract
As custodians of the World Wide Web, the Web Consortium (W3C) is both a leader and a follower. We follow because you can't standardise a process or technology until it is in use. We lead, because we guide the new technologies from technical, business, and social perspectives.
The Web has already changed publishing, and we are at the brink of even bigger changes. What happens when Web technologies are good enough to replace existing authoring tools? What happens when the Web includes SVG and MathML and can support typography powerful enough to produce printed books? What happens when electronic books and Web sites converge?
We're not quite there yet, but W3C is working in this area, working with commercial publishers, with IPDF and other organizations, listening to industry experts and tool-makers, and gently nudging the Web forward all over the world.
The difficulty facing publishers today is how to manage when the Web isn't quite ready. The right question to ask is, how do we make the Web ready?
In this session, Liam Quin from the W3C will describe what W3C is doing in its new Publishing Activity, how it will affect you, and how you can get involved.