Existing Definitions of Web Content

I took an action to look for existing definitions of web content in 
W3C.  It turns out, that is a concept that everyone understands and does 
not define.  :)  Here are some of the definitions of web content that I 
have found in existing W3C documents pertaining to mobile.  I didn't 
find anything helpful, despite looking at the definitions in about 20 
Mobile specs.

Definition of Web Application - from Mobile Web Application Best 
Practices (2010)
1) https://www.w3.org/TR/mwabp/#webapp-defined
For the purposes of this document, the term "Web application" refers to 
a Web page (XHTML or a variant thereof + CSS) or collection of Web pages 
delivered over HTTP which use server-side or client-side processing 
(e.g. JavaScript) to provide an "application-like" experience within a 
Web browser. Web applications are distinct from simple Web content (the 
focus of BP1) in that they include locally executable elements of 
interactivity and persistent state.

Description of Service Worker (offline use)
(TL;DR) - I didn't find it helpful.
https://www.w3.org/TR/service-workers/#motivations

To my surprise, I found that WCAG does not have a normative definition 
of web content.  It has:

Web page:
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#webpagedef
a non-embedded resource obtained from a single URI using HTTP plus any 
other resources that are used in the rendering or intended to be 
rendered together with it by a user agent
(plus Notes)

technology (Web content)
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#technologydef
  mechanism for encoding instructions to be rendered, played or executed 
by user agents

If anyone more familiar with WCAG knows where a definition of web 
content is, please let me know.  I have asked among my friends in other 
parts of W3C if they know of a more modern definition of web content, 
but so far, no one has been able refer me to a definition.

Mike Smith (of HTML5 WG) suggested:
Web content is content that's available on the Web (at a URL) that 
native apps can embed webviews that can fetch web content from URLs and 
display it in the app.

The grammar needs some work, but its a pretty good overview of the 
concepts we need.

Received on Thursday, 31 March 2016 14:36:47 UTC