New Web Platform Docs to offer support for web development

As the improvements in the web industry move at an almost unfathomable pace, experts are looking for ways to create avenues for web developers to acquaint with the changing standards in the industry, as well as to keep up with the emerging technologies, like new HTML 5 standards.

 

The World Wide Web Consortium, more popularly known as the W3C, recently launched the Web Platform Docs, a new website which contains a number of tutorials and relevant documents for developers to get a hang off the changing web standards.

 

 

 

W3C hopes to market the Web Platform Docs as the top-platform for those who are looking for a one-stop how-to-site where people can learn more about technologies transforming the cybersphere. The instructional website also aims to consolidate efforts from different parties to create a neutral platform for reliable resources.

 

According to W3C’s Head of Marketing and Communications Ian Jacobs, the website has already received support from tech giants like Nokia, Opera, Mozilla, Google, and Facebook. Jacob’s say the Web Platform Docs is the consortium’s “biggest scale effort for documentation.”

 

Aside from informative materials, the online platform will include forums, chat services, and discussion boards where web developers and web users can provide feedback, ask questions, and make recommendations. Those who write the Web standards can now be in contact with those who use them.

 

W3C is hopeful community input will drive the platform’s growth and eventual success. Experts liken the task of bringing together web application developers in an online fora where other small-time developers can participate in learning about the Web standards, to something like Wikipedia, where users can freely edit the space and take part in the broadening of the applications.

 

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Information on the web gradually being erased

The rise of social media has made possible the transmission of information at a fast pace. Online platforms has allowed us to share vital information, and even extremely personal experiences, at a click of a button. We link. We connect. We Tweet. We post statuses.

 

 

 

However, a recent study by a pair of researchers in Virginia revealed that many of the links shared, especially in Twitter, are gradually being lost and replaced by new information. After scouring through the data, and looking for the original source of links being shared online, the researchers discovered that an alarming 30% of the useful links have vanished in just two and a half years.

 

The report did not make it clear how or why the information shared online have disappeared. Some of the explanations suggest that the websites may have simply moved to a new address, or the blogs have been closed down, a few web pages turning inactive.

 

However, many web technology experts argue that the resources being shared online, especially those with significant historical and societal impacts like what happened in the Arab Spring revolution, are valuable in understanding the timeline of world events. Many are already proposing national libraries across the globe to store copies of webpages in a digital archive.

 

Unfortunately, gleaning data is especially difficult. Twitter’s search engine does not display an easy way to navigate through old tweets, especially those over two weeks old. Only on special cases can social data actually be shared to individuals (e.g. Andy Carvin of the NPR who is writing a book about how the Arap Spring transpired).

 

Data in cybersphere is decaying at a fast pace. Many of this information are crucial for having recorded pivotal moments in history. How the loss of this data will impact society in the next few year is yet to be seen. Nevertheless, the seemingly ephemeral quality of our online data are already alarming web experts, historians, researchers, and government officials.

 

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