Adaptive Content is high on everyone's mind, thanks to Responsive Web Design, new Google ranking strategies, customer demand and more. Problem is, how do we do it? This is where Content Marketing and Content Strategy meet Content Engineering. Get the big picture and see how others are doing it. Presented to Austin Content Meetup, 21 November 2013 by Don Day.

1. Feeding the Adaptive
Content Monster
Don Day
Contelligence Group
@donrday
donrday@contelligencegroup.com
(with select tweets from Content Strategy Applied, UK, Nov 2013, #CSAUK)
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2. What is the real monster?
• Not Adaptive Content, per se, but….
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SEO moving to stories and cohesive content
Customers looking for quality, authoritative information
Value of obtaining alternate uses/outputs from content
Need to reach new devices with different characteristics
Finer-grained search and reuse options for users
Relevance as a consumer expectation
• In short,
Demand!
Feed me!…Feed me, Krelborn!
Feed me now!…I’m starving!
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3. Good content is not just a teabag!
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Photo credit: andreasmarx / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

4. What’s wrong with my content?
• Blobs vs Chunks: Definitions
• Blobs = Amorphous entities of text, usually presentational
• Chunks = Named, scoped, modular units of information that can
be manipulated; Structured content
• Blobs are merely human consumable; “chunks” are
computationally consumable.
• Web CMS often the culprit for creating the Lowest Common
Denominator of blob-like content:
title and body with
highlighting
• For example…
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We don’t need
no stinking
chunks!

5. Presentation ≠ semantics!
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6. Doesn’t RWD solve all this?
• RWD = Responsive Web Design
• A fluid grid, media queries, and image optimization
• Example: http://crushlovely.com/, http://www.starbucks.com/
• It really, really does put more stuff into more places.
• That said,
• Crap on a page now can be turned into crap everywhere.
• RWD by itself has a lot in common with a drug delivery device!
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7. RWD: Without the right content, it
can’t deliver a great experience.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_05a-1116x1492.jpg#filelinks

8. Role of Adaptive Technologies
• Adaptive Design: Adds logic to Responsive Web Design
• Helps with intelligent resource usage (fonts, images, scope)
• Generally is not aware of content and context
• A robot in a museum can’t answer questions about the exhibits!
• Adaptive Content: Fills the divs on a page more intelligently
• Supports negotiation about its role and suitability
• For devices
• For subject matter
• For users (personalization)
• How? Structure and semantics
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9. What is Adaptive Content?
Ann Rockley:
• “Adaptive content is
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format-free,
device-independent,
scalable, and
filterable
• content that is transformable for display
• in different environments and
• on different devices
• in an automated or
dynamic fashion.”
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10. What is Adaptive Content?
Karen McGrane:
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11. Structure: Generic vs Semantic
Generic, bloggy, salesy
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Headline
Lead
Description
Keywords
Main image
Body copy
Call to Action
API reference
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<api xmlns="http://www.ioexception.de/rest-api-doc" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchemainstance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.ioexception.de/rest-api-doc ../xsd/rest-api-doc.xsd ">
<name>Foo Bar Example API</name>
<version>v2</version>
<author>John Doe</author>
<description>The following document describe the RESTful API of the
example service foo bar. </description>
<baseuri>http://myapipath/v2</baseuri>
<authentication>
<type>Basic Authentication</type>
<type>OAuth</type>
</authentication>
<resources>
<resource>
<name>User</name>
<description>This resource represents a user. </description>
<path>/user/<param description="user ID">user-id</param></path>
<operation>
<name>Create a new user account</name>
<description>Creates a new user account, if user registration is enabled.</description>
<path omitResourcePath="true">/users</path>
<formats><format>application/json</format></formats>
<request>
<method>POST</method>
<authentication mandatory="false" />
https://github.com/berb/rest-doctemplate/blob/master/example/example.xml
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* Note: One size does not fit all content types!

12. To get into the game…
• Understand use of content both within your organization and
across its partners and OEMs (commonalities)
• Understand the business rules that inform on or depend on
the semantics that you need to capture
• Whiteboard the relationships and hierarchies of the identified
semantic chunks
• Semantic terms or substructures that are shared across content
types
• The content types themselves (the starting points for driving
business processes or content categories)
• Build a schema (database or XML/RNG)
• Test! Assess, tweak, and repeat.
• Use in anger!
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13. Are you ready?
No sir, I didn’t like it!
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14. Under the hood… NPR
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15. Under the hood… Web Platform Docs
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16. View Form: Web Platform Docs
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17. Under the hood… microdata
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18. Under the hood… expeDITA
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19. GatherContent Editor Panel
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20. Under the hood… WordPress+
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21. Anticipation!
• Adaptive Content with WordPress:
• http://www.cmsmyth.com/2013/05/rom-blobs-to-chunksstructured-content-in-wordpress/
• http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/04/adaptive-contentwith-wordpress/
• http://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-content-templates/screenshots/
• http://simple-fields.com/
• http://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/
• And with Drupal:
• https://groups.drupal.org/node/51023
• Your tax dollars at work:
• http://www.howto.gov/web-content/technology/contentmanagement-systems/how-to-create-open-structured-content
• All around good stuff:
• http://meetcontent.com/blog/structured-content-an-overview/
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22. Thank you!
• And one last tweet from #CSAUK:
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23. Backup
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24. So true!
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25. Example: Research in 2003
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