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TOMB RAIDING INC. |
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a flexible markup syntax designed to carry data over the web (W3Schools, 2013). Unlike HTML, which is focused on presentation, XML is about the structure and transmission of data with a straightforward and highly customisable open standard. XML relies on user-created tags, which are defined in a Document Type Definition (DTD) statement, usually placed at the beginning of a webpage's code (Felke-Morris, 2013). The World Wide Web Consortium first adopted XML as a recommended web standard in 1998 (W3C, 2008).
Tomb Raiding Inc. wishes to utilise the XML standard to make our website better structured, more detectable by search engines, and easier to use.
There will be two main upgrades of this site to better incorporate XML:
XML Sitemap. We will first develop an XML Sitemap adhering to Sitemap Protocol 0.9. XML Sitemaps store metadata about a website's subpages and make this information accessible to search engines, such as Google, to improve detectability by web crawlers (Google, 2013). In addition to storing URLs, XML Sitemaps can also store additional information, such as when each page was last updated (Sitemaps.org, 2008). This implementation of XML has no disadvantages and should take about an hour using third-party software, such as the Google Sitemap Generator.
News page with RSS feed. A blog-style news page will be added to the site, featuring regular updates about the company. This content will be syndicated using XML-based RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Atom feeds (RSS Advisory Board, 2007; AtomEnabled Alliance, 2007). The use of feeds allows news posts (including title, URL, date, and post text or preview) to be delivered to a wide range of feed readers, making information access more efficient for the user (McLaughlin & Edelson, 2006). The feeds could be created either from scratch, with third-party software (such as ROME), or automatically (if using blogging platforms, such as Blogger or Wordpress). Again, this should only take a few hours and has no significant disadvantages, although the impending closure of Google Reader draws the future of RSS and Atom feeds in to question (Reitsma, 2013).
Further down the line, XML coding with custom tags could be used to create a secure database of client information, which could be read by specialised software on the company's PCs.
AtomEnabled Alliance. (2007). Atom syndication format - introduction. AtomEnabled. Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://www.atomenabled.org/developers/syndication/
Felke-Morris, T. (2013). Web development and design foundations with HTML5 (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Google. (2013). About Sitemaps. Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184
McLaughlin, B., & Edelson, J. (2006). Java and XML (3rd ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media. Retrieved from http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com/
Reitsma, R. (2013). Why Google Reader had to die. Forbes. Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2013/03/15/why-google-reader-had-to-die/
RSS Advisory Board. (2007). Really Simple Syndication best prasctices profile. Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://www.rssboard.org/rss-profile
Sitemaps.org. (2008). What are sitemaps? Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://www.sitemaps.org/
W3C. (2008). XML core working group public page. Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://www.w3.org/XML/Core/
W2Schools. (2013). Introduction to XML. W3schools.com. Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
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Zachary Croft | zcroft@tombs.com
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