Having been a Web consultant since 1995, I have learned a thing or two about bubbles.  As the dotcom era of the 1990s transitioned from irrational exuberance to disillusionment, the most important common denominator was the irrationality of both extremes. In recent years, Web 2.0 and social computing have driven a wave of investment with some people now concerned about another bubble.

The problem with the bubble metaphor in technology is that it implies an ephemeral, fragile, and rapidly rising trend which… pops.   The truth about the past dotcom bubble is that now, 8-years after the “pop” none of us could imagine running a modern corporation without e-mail and a browser on our desktop, to say nothing of E-Commerce, VOIP, chat, etc.

The term bubble is an oversimplification of a short-term speculative boom & bust, and most importantly, it is misleads investors, enterpreneurs and the public from a sustained and rational confidence in an underlying trend of lasting innovation.  This is not to say that there aren’t winners, losers, and lessons to be learned in the advent of any new technology, but social computing is here to stay.  We’re in the midst of a revolution in collective intelligence, with thriving and vibrant online communities breaking down boundaries between public and private life.  This is changing the way we work, play, and collaborate forever.  We’re really at the beginning of a new era in social computing, and a there is nothing temporary about it.

Firstly, a note of thanks to colleague Hal Reed for introducing me (and now you?) to the term deprovement. Hal defines deprovement as “a change that is intended to improve something, but in actual practice makes it worse, e.g., harder to adopt, harder to use, or less reliable.”

In the world of software or Web applications, deprovement is all too often what occurs when a company enthusiastically announces their next release. Today, I was inspired to learn that Mozilla added an honest to goodness improvement in their 3.0 release of the fast growing (and excellent) browser Firefox. Their secret: Version 3.0 is reported to run “more than twice as fast as the previous version while using less memory!”

How many times have you opened the newest release of a software application only to find that the latest improvements and new features have substantially deproved your system performance? This is even more serious for a large scale Web site or Web application. As an industry, let’s try to remember that speed is one of the most important elements of software and Web site usability!

For applications that have not been well structured for internationalization (I18N), the prospect of extracting and then replacing localized strings is a little like removing 30% of the strands of spaghetti in a bowl of pasta and then putting them back where they belong. If that’s not tough enough, each new strand may have to change color at a moments notice depending on who’s eating the pasta.

Even for other applications that have relatively well externalized strings, there still remains a daunting challenge of managing the text extraction, delivery to the translation partner, then reinsertion of translated code. As it turns out, the using the XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF) is a great way to simplify and scale this process while making it much more efficient.

The underlying issue that led to the creation of XLIFF is the problem of format. A translator frequently receives source documents for translation that may be in diverse formats such as Microsoft Word, Txt, HTML, RTF, and XML (with an unlimited variation of DTDs). Translators first have to deal with the challenge of simply reading the source file. This requires identifying and potentially obtaining and installing the right software package. It’s not enough to have Microsoft Word or Adobe Framemaker, but also each translator needs to have the right version of that software. We can only picture the late nights and multi-hour support phone calls required by the IT staff charged with the impossible task of setting up and maintaining these workstations.

“Hello, this is IT helpdesk, how can I help you?”
– “Would you please install Framemaker 6.0 on my workstation?”

“ Pardon me, but didn’t I just install version 7 for you yesterday?”
– “Yes, but that was for a different job, and this file doesn’t open in the new version.”

“So would you like me to uninstall version 7?”
– “I am still working on the prior job, I need both version 6 and 7!”

The problem of format is not just confined to the translator. Publishers and software developers have the challenge of extracting and sending text (strings) from documents or applications for translation. How can you be sure that the sentence or string that you extracted from your source can be reinserted in exactly the same place? In other words, each strand of spaghetti must be uniquely identifiable. The easiest way to do this is to attach little tags on the ends of each strand of spaghetti with some additional information about that strand (like attributes).

Fortunately, there is an organization that is dedicated to solving these kinds of standardization problems. The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (“OASIS”) is a not-for-profit consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society. In February of 2008, OASIS members approved the XML Localisation Interchange File Format (XLIFF) version 1.2 as an OASIS Standard, a
status that signifies the highest level of ratification.

The Bryan Schnabel, the co-chairs of the OASIS XLIFF Technical Committee describes XLIFF very simply as follows:

– XLIFF is “[a] powerful and concise format for content that needs to be translated. ”

For a company seeking to build or better manage a global Web site, XLIFF provides far greater efficiency in the setup and maintenance of content for translation. The XLIFF schema remains stable even if document format changes or software code features change over time. For the translation service provider, XLIFF greatly reduces the complexity of managing source file formats and technologies and allows translation service providers to focus more of their time and resources on the work of translation itself. For both localization customers and service providers, XLIFF also provides workflow metadata providing better communication between both parties throughout a translation lifecycle. In sum, XLIFF greatly simplifies the challenge of selectively removing and replacing multicolored spaghetti from your bowl of pasta.

Recommended Reading

OASIS Standard for XLIFF Version 1.2

OASIS XLIFF FAQ

Forget the iPhone, if you want to browse the Web while on the move, this is the best way to do it! Eliot and I found this handy Web kiosk in a McDonald’s drive-thru on Rt. 128, just south of the Mass Pike! Leave your iPhone at home and don’t spill coffee on the keyboard!

I was recently listening to NPR about Vitruvius, a 1st century BC architect and writer. He is most famously known as the inspiration for Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci famous pen and ink drawing (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man). Vitruvius is best known for his De architectura, “The Ten Books on Architecture” in which he famously says that great buildings have the following 3 characteristics:

1. Strength
2. Utility
3. Delight

By strength, Vitrivius meant that a building should last for a long time and be well constructed. By utility, he meant a building should be well organized with the necessary space and layout to serve the people who inhabit the building, and by delight he meant that a building should give aesthetically pleasure to those who look upon it or walk within its walls.

It struck me as I listened, that this is really a lesson 2000 years later for great Web site design. We should build Web sites to be (1) long lasting, e.g. with application logic, data or services layers that last a long time, (2) with effective information architecture and user experience design so that the people who use the site can find what they need intuitively and effectively, and (3) with a design aesthetic that is creative and pleasing.

Isn’t it fascinating that good design principals from Roman architecture are entirely relevant today?