After years of focusing on producing content for the latest app, investors, tech leaders and newsrooms are starting to pay renewed attention to the open web, Axios' Scott Rosenberg and I write.
The big picture: The open web is content that's accessible via any web browser, easily linked to, and doesn't require logging in. It’s winning new attention as "walled garden" apps like Facebook face scrutiny for dominance around online distribution and monetization of content.
Driving the news: WordPress VIP (WPVIP), the enterprise arm of WordPress.com, is acquiring Parse.ly, a content analytics platform that's used by thousands of digital publishers.
- Both are built for publishers on the open web.
Other tech leaders are toying with ways to revitalize publishing on the open web as a means for content creators to retain independence and control and users.
- The Washington Post has built a suite of ad tools called Zeus Technology to help publishers and advertisers on the open web compete for ad dollars with big tech firms like Google and Facebook.
- Twitter recently posted an update to its Bluesky project, which is aimed at developing open protocols for a decentralized, Twitter-like social network.
- Automattic, WordPress' parent, raised $300 million two years ago in a round led by Salesforce to invest further in open web technologies and platforms.
Catch up quick: Today's "open web" is really just the original World Wide Web itself — conceived 30 years ago, popularized in the '90s, driver of both the dotcom-era boom and the Web 2.0 renaissance of the mid 2000s.
What's next: Many open web projects today involve decentralization schemes based on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to route around big companies and fund publishing efforts in new ways.
- There have been dozens of projects, but none have yet gone mainstream.