future-proofing your content

FUTURE PROOFING YOUR CONTENT (Or, Death to the WYSIWYG)#14NTCwysiwyg

Brett MeyerContent Strategist@brett_meyer

Death to the WYSIWYG?

XEROX PARC

“You mean, what I see is what I get?”

Karen ThackerWife of Chuck Thacker

Desktop Publishing

“It's gambling that the world is ready to accept a new standard. My personal point of view is that the world is not.”

Peter McWilliamsAuthor, Personal Computer Book, on NPR, 1984

And so, here we are...

WYSIWYG

Wordpress generated 40,000,000,000 pageviews in 2012 from its 60,000,000 blogs.

J. O’DellVentureBeat

85% of nonprofits post articles on their website.

2014 Nonprofit Content Marketing Report

65% of nonprofits produced more content in 2013.

2014 Nonprofit Content Marketing Report

1,500,000 Nonprofits in the United States

GrantSpace.org

That’sa lot

of content.

But the Internet isn’t print.

So let’s talk about mobile

There will come a point at which no one will need to ask “Why would somebody want to do that on mobile?”

Karen McGraneThe Mobile Content Mandate

63% of U.S. adults use their phone to go online.

Pew Research

31% only or mostly use the Internet on mobile.

Pew Research

59% of low-income Americans have no broadband Internet access at home.

Pew Research

43% of low-income Americans only or mostly use the Internet on mobile.

Pew Research

The Raw Numbers from Pew

2 to 3 billion people will come online globally through the mobile internet over the next decade.

McKinsey

Only 16% of consumer brands have a mobile strategy.

Digiday

There will come a point at which no one will need to ask “Why would somebody want to do that on mobile?”

Karen McGraneThe Mobile Content Mandate

The people who will make that happen are the people who are adopting mobile devices ... because they do not have access to a personal computer.

Karen McGraneThe Mobile Content Mandate

And what about this?

And this?

Don’t even get me started...

The future: audio interfaces

“You don’t get to decide which device people use to go on the Internet. They do.”

Karen McGraneThe Mobile Content Mandate

But not everybody gets to choose.

Remember WYSIWYG?

Blobsvs

Chunks

NPR’s COPE

Create Once

Publish Everywhere

NPR.org

NPR.org: Desktop

NPR.org: Tablet

NPR.org: Phone

NPR.org: iPhone App

NPR.org: iPhone App

NPR.org: iPad App

NPR.org: iPad App

OPB.org

OPB.org

Structured content

Create Once

Publish Everywhere

NPR’s API

NPR’s API

New York Times

Boston Globe

Song Structure

Nothing exciting here

Content Type: Album

• Title• Release Date • Cover Image• Details• Song [REFERENCE]

Content Type: Album

Content Type: Song

• Title• Release Date • Cover Image• Composer• Lyrics• Performance [REFERENCE]

Content Type: Song

Content Type: Performance

• Tour [REFERENCE]• Venue [REFERENCE]• Date• Poster Image• Live Images [REFERENCE]• Bootleg CD

Content Type: Performance

Interlude: Metadata

Descriptive metadata is explicit information supplied

about a user, resource, or event.

PJ Uses Metadata

And so do nonprofits, just like yours.

Interlude: Paradata

Paradata is information about

relationships between users and

content.

Amazon Uses Paradata

Beyond Structured Content

NPR.org Revisited

NPR.org Revisited

Jeff EatonThe Battle for the Body Field

Reporters and editors insisted it would cripple their work. They needed to mix in multiple videos, a gallery and a poll, or several related article teasers, at specific points in each article.

Store meaning, not appearance, in the body field.

Jeff EatonThe Battle for the Body Field

WYSIWYM

WYSIWYMWhat You Say Is What You Mean

<warning type="hardware">Don’t turn off the server!</warning>

<gallery id="1" />

<teaser article="82" rel="rebuttal" />

OPB Revisited

• This is a social justice issue. Talking Points

• This is a social justice issue.• Structure now to avoid paying to rebuild over and over again.

Talking Points

• This is a social justice issue. • Structure now to avoid paying to rebuild over and over again. • Structured content makes it easy to apply metadata and paradata.

Talking Points

• This is a social justice issue. • Structure now to avoid paying to rebuild over and over again. • Structured content makes it easy to apply metadata and paradata.• There are tools that can help you do this now. Free tools!

Talking Points

• An Open Source CMS: Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla!

The Toolset

• An Open Source CMS: Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla!• Robust Taxonomies: Relate pieces of content to each other.

The Toolset

• An Open Source CMS: Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla!• Robust Taxonomies: Relate pieces of content to each other. • A Plan: There’s no shortcut to good, structured content.

The Toolset

• An Open Source CMS: Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla!• Robust Taxonomies: Relate pieces of content to each other. • A Plan: There’s no shortcut to good, structured content.• And, if you want to get fancy: an API

The Toolset

• A List Apart• KarenMcGrane.com• Jeff Eaton (angrylittletree.com/)

Some Resources

What did you think?

Evaluate this session!Or, search by session title at www.nten.org/ntc/eval

When you evaluate a session, you will be entered to win a prize!