How Xml is Changing Publishing Today

In the 1990’s, there were not as many publishers of online content as there were visitors who were reading online content. Bookstores were selling more tangible publications, hardly anyone had a blog and students bought only huge textbooks from university bookstores as required reading. Years later, we find that everyone all over the world is participating in online publishing. From social networks involving reviews and or comments to poetry, You Tube video casts, personal webpage’s, blogs, publications and even full manuscripts all fight for space and attention online.

Today, many students are required to bring laptops to class and read from online articles or publications, accessed with a password once a subscription fee has been paid. Bookstores are indeed selling books but competition has grown with easily accessible online works.

Large publishing organizations began to ask themselves how they were supposed to compete in a now paperless society of information. First, how were they going to get all of their content online without spending tons of time and money to scan or convert files into one format readable by everyone and secondly, how were they going to make a profit from their content once they overcame the giant task of getting it all online?

How would users be able to navigate such a mass of information from large publishing houses and insurance companies with enormous databases with terabytes of content? Would users be able to access specific information without getting lost in the endless lists of possible websites that previous search engines provide?

A couple fascinating emergences occurred to help answer these questions.

With the advent of XML, extensible mark up language, came XML content servers and with that, XML publishing, a new way to reuse and repurpose content to create a profit.

Thinking about XML and an XML content server for your enterprise?