… and your ad agency probably can’t fix it.

The next few months can be expected to see some important changes in the technology we use to deliver content and services through the Internet. The most visible of these is probably the increasing take up of the upcoming Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 web browser (currently in public beta version). While this software adds a range of new functions and features which no doubt many users will find interesting and useful, the real issue rests with the way that Internet Explorer renders the web pages it visits.

From Version 8, Internet Explorer is “fully compliant” with relevant standards (as explained in this Microsoft Press Release) which define the way Internet languages such as HTML, XML and so on are interpreted and rendered and which allow interoperability across a range of web browsers such as Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, Google Chrome and so on.. Or to put it another way, the way the pages look when you visit them, no matter which web browser you use.

It might sound a little strange, but up until now, Microsoft has always applied its “own slant” on the way these standards have been applied in their software. This “proprietary approach” has meant that digital services companies such as Hyro have had to use specific tags and techniques to make sure that the pages appear correct in all of the popular browsers. Ironically, it is these “proprietary tags” which will cause the websites to appear incorrect, with errors such as formatting problems and some functions ceasing to work as expected being the result.

The good news is that the there are some “quick fixes” which will solve the rendering problem in the short term. This is done by inserting a special tag in the header of each page which tells IE 8 to render the page as an IE 7 page. Good enough for the short term but not the long term, commercial grade approach required. To understand this, it is important to look behind why these changes are occurring.

At the core of the change is the acceptance of the shift away from a “mark up” language view of the Internet (in which content is presented as pages connect by links) to a “services” view (where data, content and services are made accessible over the Internet and are collated dynamically based on who you are, how you are accessing them and what you want to do). This new model is a logical step in the evolution of the Internet and paves the way for more sophisticated, targeted and powerful commercial applications over the internet. It is also an important core platform for the multi-device, multi-channel Internet we are working with today.

For companies and government agencies, this is a marked step-up in the technical sophistication of your digital initiatives. No longer can you be satisfied with content focused “web pages” or “campaign sites / micro-sites” as the core of your digital strategy. To make money and save costs, and to remain competitive and compelling to your customers, you need to take a more mature, architectural approach and think about how your company is going to define, deliver and collate your content and services in this next generation Internet. This more sophisticated approach is the domain of the specialist Digital Services company.

Those companies doing this well today are already gaining a competitive advantage.