Hey man, I’m in blog debate mode. Unable to notice subtlety in the other party’s argumentation.

“Your point about Six Apart and Ajax gets us back to where this conversation started: the “hooksâ€? that RIAs do or don’t offer for operating on particular chunks of content. It will be interesting to see where Six Apart goes with this.”

I’m in the process of posting on this topic here.

And I said if the provider depends on branding. Not everybody does.

Your point about Six Apart and Ajax gets us back to where this conversation started: the “hooks” that RIAs do or don’t offer for operating on particular chunks of content. It will be interesting to see where Six Apart goes with this.

“(1) The provider has to have a revenue stream that works no matter who is providing the UX. In particular, the model of ads embedded in the UX won’t work. That’s why Amazon can make its API available for free and unmetered, but Google requires people to use Google Keys (at least they did for their main search the last time I looked).”

Seems a fair point, my only observation would be that people and entities give away information all of the time. Not doing UX might actually lessen the cost.

“(2) If the provider depends on branding, the brand must survive the UX somehow – either through licensing or through the provider being clearly identified in the final delivery of items selected through the API (as in the case of Amazon).”

Really? In the case of Amazon, they are doing it to get a revenue stream. Are you obliged by their TOS to display brand? At one point, I think you were not.

“(3) The API must have been designed well enough to anticipate the needs of the UX designers and their end users. It’s easy to imagine situations in which too strong a separation between the two pieces of the process would lead to disastrous results. We saw this all the time in the client-server model – I’m thinking, for instance, of the mess that Z39.50 turned into. (At least it was a mess the last time I looked. Maybe it’s been resolved by now.)”

This is clearly a giant issue. Six Apart is planning on incorporating AJAX into their product. A real big question what the API will look like. It is easier if you are willing to be more open about your overall architecture. Part of the issue with Amazon is that they insist on offering a completely encapsulated interface. This does not allow people on the UI end of things much lattitude in how the information and even what information is sent over from the server.

Bud, your point is indeed provocative. I think you’re right that it’s possible for some providers of content or services to offload UX to other parties. But for that to work, some conditions have to be met:

(1) The provider has to have a revenue stream that works no matter who is providing the UX. In particular, the model of ads embedded in the UX won’t work. That’s why Amazon can make its API available for free and unmetered, but Google requires people to use Google Keys (at least they did for their main search the last time I looked).

(2) If the provider depends on branding, the brand must survive the UX somehow — either through licensing or through the provider being clearly identified in the final delivery of items selected through the API (as in the case of Amazon).

(3) The API must have been designed well enough to anticipate the needs of the UX designers and their end users. It’s easy to imagine situations in which too strong a separation between the two pieces of the process would lead to disastrous results. We saw this all the time in the client-server model — I’m thinking, for instance, of the mess that Z39.50 turned into. (At least it was a mess the last time I looked. Maybe it’s been resolved by now.)

Any others?

If you want, I can email the article.

I am raising the point somewhat provocatively and somewhat seriously. What strikes me in this game is dissemination of information in a *competitive* environment. As an information provider, do I invest in a given technology? Or am I better served investing in an API and letting promulgators of user experience compete for eyeballs?

Amazon has done this with their RESTful API as has google with google maps.

Mind you, both have invested in UX, but they’ve hedged their bets on that with the API.

If we’re going to call a technology dead, then let me propose that we say so because the technology is no longer on the critical path to exploiting the underlying asset’s value proposition. If that’s the case, let me propose that the entire field of UX is dead for many purveyors of archival information.

Anyway, I was telling it’s publisher that I want to write a new article very soon on this topic, but w/ a new perspective 2+ years later. But I’ll spill some beans here in reaction to your comment and in reaction tot he poster:

1. Niether the page nor HTML is dead. the article wasn’t pointlessly controversial, it’s point is to be controversial, to move people out of their boxes and to be thinking about alternatives. The web has been stale for quite some time except for burts from Google. I find the infatuation with Blogware to be a technology distraction with a very good piece of content attached to it. while like HTML it is open, extensible, and easy, it is also not all that much of a leap from the previous set of paradigms. but I can go on there for quite some time.

2. Prentis, brings up some great concerns. Many of which can be handled using the existing technology. Bookmarking, searching internally, even allowing for crawlers can all be handled in one way or another within the architecture of an RIA including a Flash-based RIA. You just need to dig a bit and you need to work at it.

3. What’s in it for the user?
a. My main problem w/ conventional HTML (not AJAX) is the obvious asynchronousity of it. that page flash is the most annoying thing since chalk on blackboard.
b. HTML is not a contexutalized interface
c. x-browser/platform support for HTML is a bear. Flash is a code-once distribute anywhere including the mobile device.

4. Is all this to say that RIAs are done? NO WAY!!! I just through telling a vendor of RIAs that there is no one technology out there that is nearly good enough for the long term ubiquitous use of RIAs.

5. BUT they are not without their uses. Let’s not dismiss them out of hand.

also, I recommend that people read up on the other presentation about RIAs that to me was much much more important: “Beyond the Page” … not the page is dead, but that there are information and interaction models that we can consider (not go blindly into, but consider) that will open our minds to more possibilites for figuring out how to meet users’ needs. Options and more options.

6. Flash is not closed. The flash authoring tool is, but there are other tools for creating SWF files and entire frameworks like Lazslo which are completely open source as well.

So, I had the quote in the panel of saying, “the Page is Dead” .. it was later revised, “the Page is dead, long live the page.”

BTW, the best example of Ajax I’ve seen yet, maybe even more elegant than Flickr’s use of it, is the business card generator here. (IE and Mozilla only, AFAIK).