XML for Content and E-Commerce.

• Author: PHILLIPS, JOHN T.
• Position: Brief Article

A striking advantage of computer-based data is its flexible re-use for multiple purposes. Re-purposing digital document content creates new publication avenues and potentially creates new revenue streams for competitive enterprises. The ability to transmit data faster and more economically by electronic means creates incentive for using computer-based methods of document distribution instead of more traditional "print and distribute" models. However, most organizations investing time and resources in creating document content want to get the greatest possible return. If a single investment in content creation yields multiple products and services, operating cost is reduced and new income generated.

The use of extensible markup language (XML) meets these goals admirably. Document data and text content encoded with XML can be posted to Internet Web sites, processed with desktop publishing software for distribution on CD-ROM media, and used in e-commerce applications. In fact, the growing acceptance of XML use for building document content is creating a sense that XML is a new open data standard that can be used for data exchange, document publishing, and eventually document archiving. Organizations have begun to employ XML for many document publication and data exchange purposes.

As with most new technologies, implementation realities result in scaling back expectations as "lessons learned" begin to surface. Some organizations will experience XML shock as they retool information systems departments and computer infrastructures. Others will find that XML documents are actually more limited than those produced in more traditional formats and that not all Web-site-hosted documents really need XML to be informative and functional. XML use for content management has enormous potential, but it must be implemented realistically.

Evolving Content Management

The explosion in Internet use during the 1990s and the subsequent drive to Web-enable many computer software systems resulted in the need for a standard method of presenting information on Web sites. For many years, basic-level hypertext markup language (HTML) was used to present textual content across the Internet by creating tagged text documents. Tags -- special text codes -- were placed around various text and graphics elements in the document to indicate structure and specific formatting when the document displayed or printed. HTML was a convenient subset of standard generalized markup language (SGML), an international standard that had been around for many years.

SGML is maintained by the International Organization for Standardization and is not bound to any particular computer operating system or hardware platform. Originally intended to foster the exchange of text-based data between organizations, SGML is a language syntax used to create markup language tags for different types of documents so that their content and formatting can be dealt with separately. Having a standard language for managing document content has proven advantageous for organizations over the years as a basis for content communication and exchange. For these reasons, there are SGML-based text editors, typesetters, and document management products, and many organizations have placed document content in a standard format by using SGML.

Since SGML documents are not tied to any one vendor or software, various industries have created their own document types (document type definitions -- DTDs) for information commonly exchanged in their business activities. However, SGML requires special training to use, and it is not particularly fast or efficient in the way it runs on computer systems. In...