One Publishing Site with Many Subscribers

• This class of application is where each visitor to a site is interested in only a very small proportion of the information it contains. The dynamic web allows such a site the option of sending this highly selective information direct to each visitor's own site with updates whenever it changes.

• One simple example of this occurs on the site of a courier. The owner of each consignment wants to be told when a consignment is delivered but does not want the chore of repeated access to the courier's web-site. (I understand that Fed-X offer such a service but have no further knowledge of their system.) I see this sort of thing being supported by the dynamic web. As each change to the 'status' property of one of a subscriber's own consignments is recorded on the publishing site's information store - a copy would also be sent to that subscriber's own site where it can be incorporated into an appropriate page.

• Other similar examples occur wherever the owner of one site is in possession of progress tracking information of interest to other parties. This would include the monitoring of changes in the expected delivery of back-orders. It would also apply to registers like the UDDI where unscheduled additions combine with a scope much wider than the interests of any individual user. Here the benefit would be that interested parties could have on their own site just that part of the register which is relevant to their own needs with an assurance that it is kept up-to-date at all times.

• Another case came to my attention when reading a Montreal paper today (28 Nov 05). It seems that trials are under way for a system of speed monitoring for cars. The dynamic web would be ideal for updating your car with accurate detail of speed limits in whatever area you are driving. I am sure the range of potential applications is endless - and we should not overlook the wider benefit that all such information would be readily available to web applications and for general enquiry.

A Family of Publishing Sites Reporting to a Single Subscriber

• This is where a family of publishing sites is set up to feed information into a central control point. Here there is just one subscribing site which has subscription contracts with a number of monitoring points that are all equipped as publishing sites. This includes any situation where mobile staff are required to report progress, resource requirements, problems etc.

• A glimpse of some more exciting potential is provided through the availability of an affordable web-enabled chip that can act as a publishing site for information such as temperature, pressure, local switch settings etc. that it obtains through analogue and digital ports connected to critical equipment. The dynamic web would make it very easy for this sort of information to be collated on a remote control web-site that would be the only subscriber to a whole set of such chips placed at critical points across a complex system. Possible applications for this could range from traffic control and chemical production systems to meter reading for domestic supplies of gas, water and electricity.

• A more fanciful idea would be to combine such a chip with GPS so that the location of valuable or dangerous items could be tracked in real-time by the person(s) responsible through a simple subscribing site that almost anyone could set up.

Tailored Collation of Information from Many Sources.

• I now come to the original idea that drove the development of this technology. This is the notion that individual web users could tailor their own sites to collate information from many different sites so as to avoid having to go and look. I believe that this idea could rapidly gain in popularity as people's lifestyle becomes dependent on particular types of information that can change without warning. This would include road conditions, availability and expected arrival times of public transport, and all sorts of public notice from flood warnings to renewal of licences and insurance.

• The benefit here is one of focus. Each person would develop their own collation pages to match their own perception of need. The only limit on content is that the sources of such information must be willing to publish it on the dynamic web. The commercial imperative for such publication would come from those who favour selective promotion to regular customers who elect to receive offers that are highly tailored to their own interests. This sort of service is currently provided through e-mails where it can get lost within a lot of less important chatter. With the dynamic web the user can easily arrange to give prominence to those updates, reminders etc. to which he/she attaches the greatest importance.

• The incentive for customers to subscribe would come from the ease with which they can control what they receive from where. There would, of course, be an added bonus for those who would get a buzz from having a highly personalized site containing a highly individual mix of information drawn from sources they choose.

• For people who travel there would be a further bonus in that much of this information could be tailored to the user's current location.

Overview

• My aim on this page is not to provide a catalogue of potential applications because the dynamic web is like a generic system component. Only the people working each field can see how it could be exploited. I have no doubt that many people with expertise in the development of sophisticated web applications and web services may feel that my offering is just another way of doing what they do already - and a bit naive at that.

• My answer is that "Yes you can do it but how much did it cost? Does the existing technology make this sort of thing available to everyone right down to an impoverished student tracking gorillas in the mountains of central Africa?"

• The suggestions on this page are just a few ideas to get you thinking. Should these spark any thoughts of ways in which the dynamic web could be useful in your own field please let me know at harryellis@acm.org so that I can pass these on to other readers of this page.