Behold the beauty that is XHTML

Okay, so this seems more than a little obvious, but to me the most basic element is the most important - html and xhtml code.

It's the code that has built the internet, literally and figuratively. It's so easy to use that one need not be a programmer to use it effectively. In addition there are so many affordable or even free interfaces that anyone can design and build a website. It's a great equalizer - it doesn't take a lot of money to have a web presence.

For me as a photojournalist it's very important for me to have a website. Partially for advertising, partly as a way to easily have subjects find me (if someone wants a photo I've taken of them at an event it's easier for them to contact me than for me to contact them - I just hand them my business card rather than take down their contact info and risk missing a shot or losing the paper), and simply to get my work out there.

As a citizen I love that I can read the online versions of newspapers from around the country and the world. Even more, I love that if a story is getting a lot of attention I can go to the source. Take the Michele Bachmann story from last weekend as an example. I don't have cable tv. Normally I would only be able to see the clip that made the news. That leaves me at the mercy of the editors to ensure context. (Granted, not a big issue in this example.) I find it so incredible that I can go to the internet and find the entire broadcast, see it in its context, and make up own my mind.

Another example of original sourcing is links to similar or previous stories on the topic. It makes it so easy to get to the first/original story. A cool thing the Guardian does is show when and how a story has changed since it's original posting. (Although this may be a consequence of the UK data practices and libel laws.) For example, take a look at this article on the McCain Robocalls, click on the "article history" link under the by-line. Not a lot of changes in this example, but I like having the history available to me. (Go figure, when I go looking for a story with lots of updates I can't find one!)

Note: I thought I added the links last night, but it didn't work. I actually had to go into the HTML code to make it work!