This week I’ve been wondering about the future of the open web, and thinking where are we going to be publishing our digital content in that future?
I recently came across a very interesting article on The Verge website. The article discussed how they went about updating their online content, by rearranging the jig-saw puzzle to make them suitable for today’s digital marketing landscape.
In short, what the article is asking is what exactly is the role of the open web in the future? There are many consumers that now spend their time online primarily on social media, and use Google specifically to find content.
All this can mean that the time users now spend browsing the open web is becoming less and less. Our efforts must respond to these challenges, and we should be ready to publish content in front of our audiences, where it is most convenient for them.
What is the open web?
Traditionally the so-called ‘open web ‘ are the online platforms whose content is available to everyone, free of charge at any time. Normally these platforms can be accessed through any web browser such as Google Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer . The content of these platforms would also be available by searching various search engines.
Any website with a web address and which offer open content is part of the open web. The most obvious example of the open web would be Wikipedia.
What is the closed web?
Major growth came to the closed web with the advent of smartphones, and especially due to apps replacing traditional web browsing. Many popular apps have content that is not available on the open web. You only need to think of apps such as Facebook and Snapchat.
These platforms are often facilitated by closed systems or ecosystems such as Apple’s iOS and the App Store.
This closed web is easier to monetize, and publishers in particular are going to find it easier to make money from it.
There is also what is called the dark web. These are mostly chat apps such as What’s App. But that is another story altogether…
Where is opportunity and growth for content creators like us?
I don’t think that it is a simple either/or matter. People do not have to choose between the open web and the closed web. The two can co-exist to some extent.
Some important subjects for you to consider in this context are
- Where does your audience spend its time on the Internet?
- Where, and how, do they come across things that are of interest to them?
- From what sources do people come to your website?
In order to get an answer to these questions you will need to speak with real users and look closely at your website analytics (e.g. Google Analytics) to understand your users’ behaviors better.
Everything on the website?
It’s a relatively conservative practice (not that it is a bad thing) to feel that that everything needs to start and finish with our website. Many feel the need for each piece of content, in the end, to be somewhere on the website so that it is not able to ‘disappear ‘, and that it is ‘all in one place ‘.
But through technologies such as RSS feeds your website content can work harder on your behalf if you take time to set the foundations.
Google AMP
If the bulk of your users come to the site via the search engine Google (and it is very likely that this is your reality) and you have dynamic content such as a blog or regular news content on your website, you should consider the benefits of Google AMP.
To all intents and purposes this is the creation of a high-speed version of the content of your website pages to be displayed to users, and it is very useful to people who search on mobile devices. It’s early days, but you expect to see the technology being adopted more widely around the web. (Pinterest already display articles in the form of Google AMP).
Instant Articles
Here is Facebook’s version of AMP, displaying articles quickly within the Facebook app. The technology is not open, therefore this is only likely to work on the Facebook app itself.
But if you have a lot of traffic coming to your website from Facebook, it is worth considering how this can be of benefit to maintaining you user’s interest. You could give them content within the Facebook app without having top load your website. This is particularly good if your website is not the fastest.
Video
It is now clear that video content, and live video, is going to be increasingly important over the next few years. Particularly on Facebook and YouTube.
It will be possible to embed the videos we upload to these platforms back on our websites. of course. But Facebook gives great attention to live video content on their platform and the ability to use Facebook’s comments system to connect directly with the people in front of the camera.
So is this the end of the open web?
Let me say that this is not the end of the open web. But I suggest that there is a need to consider things in this way: your digital content is a jigsaw puzzle of of various sizes. We need to be putting this puzzle together as best we could. But unfortunately the pieces keep shape-shifting, so we must be adapting constantly. We may never ‘get there’, but the closer we can be the better!
You will see that there are some pieces that will always be central to you (and therefore, maybe, on your website). Other pieces of content can be moved between platforms, and take the form of text, images, GIFs or videos, as required. a
Enjoy the jigsaw puzzle!
Do you have any views on digital content and the open web? Please let me know with your comments below!