Heading up to the 2010 release of Frogans technology, this month marks the 10th anniversary for STG Interactive S.A., the company behind the development of Frogans technology. We are very fortunate to have been allowed the time to develop a technology that is robust and scalable for meeting the full demands of the Internet community, and also to prepare our company for rapid, stable and long-term growth.

Frogans technology as a new layer of the Internet was conceived from the start to address the problems arising from the Web’s lack of simplicity and security for publishers, developers and end-users. These problems were already underway in the mid-90s. But if anyone else was alarmed, no one was taking the right fundamental steps: Superior integration of online content creation, browsing and distribution.

The principles of security, stability and neutrality apply not only to Frogans technology, but to STG Interactive also. We have always planned for the long term, whether it involves building an economic model, developing our industrial base, managing intellectual property or building our team, while respecting the legitimate and various interests throughout the Internet community.

Today, due in part by the Web browser wars, and now with the proliferation of networked device platforms, the Web is more fragmented than ever. The Frogans layer of the Internet will bring easy, standards-based publishing solutions for desktop, mobile and innumerable other devices. This is made possible through ten years of achievement and maturation – probably the Frogans layer’s greatest asset to date.

In the meantime, how about some candles?

I was at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas recently. I got the impression that the wireless industry could well use an explosion in mobile content creation to come along. It hasn’t happened yet, and here are three reasons why:

1) The mobile Web. People are not crashing the gates to redo their existing websites, or create new ones, in mobile-friendly WAP format. Maybe it’s because of the unpredictability of WAP’s display on different platforms and devices. Maybe it’s because they are waiting for easier and more universal standards to come along. Maybe it’s because WAP just seems so 90s.

2) Mobile apps. Imagine that instead of just authoring content into Web pages, every site was in its own custom browser which you installed on your computer. That’s a bit the logic behind mobile apps, and this is justified when rich content, like games and video, is concerned. But there is a hefty price tag for their initial development, for porting them to different devices and for updating them regularly. Plus the store-based distribution model (find-it, download-it, install-it) is very restrictive. All this means that this will never be an online publishing option for the vast majority of us.

3) Frogans technology is not yet launched. Frogans technology will basically fill that enormous gap between the mobile Web and mobile apps. This will be the only format which simply allows you to author once and have the same online content display securely and identically on all supported devices. Plus, it’s a format that is perfectly adapted for touchscreen phones. Frogans sites are looked-up for navigation via their frogans addresses, so once your Frogans Player is installed, the (exploding number of) frogans sites of the Universe will be at your fingertips.

What’s really funny is that these same frogans sites will also be navigated on desktop computers using the same technology. That’s really funny.

Have a stratospheric one!

Update Jan 5, 2009 – Parts of this post are now outdated. In particular, STG Interactive S.A. is interested in operating a .frogans gTLD, but not for distributing domain names to the public, even if they have frogans addresses. We see a .frogans gTLD as being a great asset to the security and stability in operating the Main Frogans Network on the Internet. I’ll have more details on this subject once ICANN finalizes its Guidebook for new gTLD applicants.

I’ve been spending time at the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) 32nd International Public Meeting here in Paris last week. For me it has been a chance to learn more about current Internet addressing issues, but also to talk face-to-face with domain name registrars about Frogans technology.

And it’s been a real eye-opener on the subject of generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Right now, twenty one gTLDs exist. These include “.com,” “.biz” and “.edu”. TLDs include also those of the country code flavor (ccTLDs) like “.au” for Australia and “.cn” for China.

Thanks to the New gTLD Program, the number of gTLDs is expected to explode. While the policy details are still being worked out by the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), we can expect within the next few years a huge proliferation of domain name registries. The result will be that instead of registering “burger-and-fries.net”, it might be “burger-and-fries.fast-food”, where “.fast-food” has replaced “.net”, or “.com” or “.org”.

Not everybody thinks that this is good news. For existing registries it must be like scaling Mt Everest for a quiet summit picnic, only to find a new ski-lift bringing up folks by the twelve-pack. Not only do hard-earned gTLDs like “.eu” and “.jobs” risk losing some of their distinctiveness and meaning, but there are technical limitations to consider and administrative issues to untangle.

But it could also be a necessary evolutionary step for assuring a continued high level of innovation on the Internet. At STG Interactive, we see in this policy a reflection of our own point of view: that there must always be room for innovation on the Internet, even at the expense of “business as usual.”

It could even be a good thing for the Frogansphere. For instance, once the New gTLD program goes into effect, STG Interactive could apply to register the “.frogans” gTLD with ICANN. Imagine that for every one of your frogans addresses, STG Interactive could provide you with a free corresponding domain name. So with “frogans*burger-and-fries”, your corresponding domain name would be “burger-and-fries.frogans”.

This free domain name would be tied to a Web page for accessing your frogans. For instance, if you were to go to “http://burger-and-fries.frogans/” in a Web browser, a page could come up that contained a LeapToFrogans link to “frogans*burger-and-fries”. Here, the “.frogans” gTLD serves as a springboard between the Web and the Frogans layers of the Internet.

This idea sprung up after attending the Workshop meeting on New gTLDs. But in fact, STG Interactive could still move ahead with a similar idea if, for some reason, it were not possible to obtain a “.frogans” gTLD. STG Interactive might still provide each frogans address registrant with a free subdomain name under “frogansphere.net”, for example, “burger-and-fries.frogansphere.net”, and it would work the same way (even though it creates a dependancy on the “.net” registry). It’s longer to type, but still looks good enough to byte (pun intended).

…It works perfectly well at the moment.”

That’s a good question that I was asked in a recent exchange, and it inspired me to write this post.

A Swiss Army Knife doesn’t replace a toolkit. But who wants to lug around fifty pounds of wrenches and hammers all day?

Simple + secure + cohesive = captivating

The idea of Frogans technology is not to reinvent the Web, nor to replace it, but to provide end-user with a complimentary way to interact with online content that takes user-friendliness to a new level.

Simple

Two elements omnipresent in Web use encumber the end-user: The browser window and URLs. Frogans don’t employ application windows. Every frogans is its own entity on your screen, each being identified by its single frogans address, each containing a potentially unlimited number of slides. Navigate within a frogans, between different frogans, or between a frogans and other layers of the Internet, such as the Web or email.

Frogans addresses simplify frogans navigation. Rather than being tied to hosting-provided IP addresses and their subdirectories, frogans addresses are singular names chosen by the frogans publisher for each of their frogans. This allows the publisher more flexibility with their hosting options, and the end-user less complexity for navigating.

Secure

FSDL (Frogans Slide Description Language), though compatible with all server-side applications, is the only language in which you may author and develop a frogans, and allows no executable scripts, meaning that the end-user can expect more security against malicious online content.

There is no hard disk cache for frogans resources (FSDL, GIF, JPG and PNG). These are loaded into active memory only, isolating them from your system’s resources.

Frogans addresses are looked up and validated through digital signatures in FNSL (Frogans Network System Language) between the end-user’s Frogans Player and frogans networks.

Cohesive

The three pillars of Frogans technology, FSDL, FNSL and the Frogans Player (for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X), work together in complete harmony with the singular goal optimizing the end-user’s navigating experience.

Captivating

Suddenly the end-user can maintain persistent contact with online content without sacrificing the functionality and security of their computer. User-scaleable frogans blend in with your desktop environment. No model for this kind of interactivity exists on the Web.

Frogans, with an “s”. For some reason, which nobody seems to remember, “frogans” is always spelled with an “s” at the end, whether we’re talking about one frogans or a whole flock of frogans.

It’s funny how this affects the way we talk about frogans. For instance, I could ambiguously say “Look at the frogans”, but it would have been better had I said “look at that frogans,” or “look at those frogans” and be more precise.

Now if I have a red frogans I can say: ” I sure like my frogans’ color.”

With fifty red frogans I say the exact same thing: “I sure like my frogans’ color.”

It’s impossible to know whether I’m talking about one or more frogans here. It might be better to say “I sure like the color of all my fifty frogans. They’re red, by the way.”

In the absence of any clear explanation of this entomological particularity, let’s just make something up:

There’s more to a frogans than meets the eye. Behind that humble home slide may burrow a plethora of amazingly diverse content just waiting to be explored. “Frogan” is so downright insufficient, you can hardly keep that “s” from ssssssslithering out. So rather than rewriting the laws of physics, we all just call them FROGANS, and the world is a happier place.

There you have it. The mystery is a mystery no more. Go home. Get a good night’s sleep, getting back to that excellent reoccurring dream about the upcoming release of Frogans technology.

Come ye all into the Frogansphere. Let the adventure begin. Frankly, what’s in it for me, the candy-maker, the baker, the man on the street?

To describe your role in the Frogansphere let’s start with STG Interactive’s limited role.

Imagine a community where everyone is welcome to visit (sounds too good to be true). It resembles the Web in that way, and from the end-user’s point of view that’s how we can look at the Frogansphere.

Imagine you want to build a house, a business, set up an association in that community. In the Frogansphere you’re free to do anything (legal) that you like. You can invite as many people as you like, and be as big, small, crazy, conservative, cool, ugly, even as lucrative as you like. You simply need a special address so that the rest of us can find you. That’s the frogans address that you register with STG Interactive. The subscription rate is the same for everybody ($12 per year, $20 for two, plus taxes where applicable, by the way).

The community, the Frogansphere, is built on the Internet. STG Interactive provides the elementary tools at no charge and makes sure that the point of entry stays open to visitors by operating the Main Frogans Network and by making the (free) Frogans Player available to everyone. As a content provider you create frogans of your own and register one or more frogans addresses so that Frogans Player users can marvel at the amazing things that you’ve done.

To be more specific:

What does STG Interactive do?

STG Interactive creates Frogans Technology which is made up of:

• FSDL (Frogans Slide Description Language) for authoring frogans
• The Frogans Player for visiting, displaying and navigating frogans
• FNSL (Frogans Network System Language) for creating frogans networks.

STG Interactive operates the MFN (Main Frogans Network).

• With the Frogans Player anybody can access a frogans on the MFN.
• Anybody who has registered at least one frogans address with STG Interactive can publish a frogans on the MFN.

STG Interactive has set up a frogans address registration affiliation program

• Operated through the Commission Junction platform this program offers commissions on frogans address registrations actuated by affiliates.

What does STG Interactive not do?
(You might think of the following as a list of frogans-biz opportunities ripening on the vine.)

STG Interactive does not create frogans

• Sure, we may do a few demos, but that’s just to help get the ball rolling for everyone else. STG Interactive provides the framework, but not the content. That’s for you to do.

STG Interactive does not publish frogans authoring tools

• We’ll be putting a frogans creation tool online with limited functionality fairly soon: the Frogans Start Service. But again, this is just to get the ball rolling. We’d much prefer that others take the torch. It’s just not our line of work. We’ll do our best to see that software developers have the resources they need for making tools that help the rest of us make frogans.

STG Interactive does not determine the content of your frogans

• Use your frogans to say whatever you want (within the laws of your country). We don’t oblige you to put ads, or anything else in your frogans. Your frogans content is your responsibility and your right, so go crazy.

STG Interactive does not host frogans

• You register your frogans address with STG Interactive, but where you host you frogans is entirely up to you.

STG Interactive does not publish FSDL user guides

• We publish the FSDL Specifications to be as complete and as accurate as possible. Anybody who wants to publish more intuitive explanations (tutorials, books, code examples, FSDL Specification translations, etc.) is free to do so.

STG Interactive will not create a frogans search engine or directory

• Frogans search services can be freely created by anyone on the Internet. Leaving that role to the specialists, STG Interactive will not provide these services to end-users, and will not provide lists of registered frogans addresses to third parties.

STG Interactive does not sell you anything besides frogans address registration subscriptions (or licenses for creating private frogans networks of your own)

• We’re not out for a piece of your action. That’s why frogans address registration fees are the same for everybody, whether you have one, or a zillion frogans addresses, and whether your frogans are visited by the entire world, or by just a few acquaintances.

In short, if the Frogansphere is to grow, it has to be without barriers. STG Interactive provides the addressing service and the format specifications. It’s up to you to decide what you do, and how far you want to go. It’s way cool, so knock yourself out!

Still talking about the frogans address. In the post down below I was talking about how frogans addresses can indicate frogans families, and the implications of such when browsing: If a frogans being visited has family members on the net, the end-user can open them up directly from that frogans’ contextual menu (right-click, or ctrl-click on a Mac).

The frogans address simplifies browsing in another way that I haven’t yet talked about. It simplifies your browsing history.

When surfing about on the Web your browser caches the URL of every page you’ve recently been on so that you can trace your steps under the History menu. We’ve all been there: Depending on your activity, a week’s worth of URLs can be a big messy list. I wonder how often people just skim that menu for any page on the site that they’re looking for, and then navigate from there? “Fairly often” says I, and if you think I’m way off mark, leave a comment (anybody?).

Browsing back by frogans addresses (a pleasure that, alas, can only be done in the frogansphere) involves less rummaging. Every frogans you visit opens up on its home slide. Addresses for other slides within a same frogans do not exist.

“WHAT? I can’t type in the exact slide that I want to see without going through the navigation?” Relax, and think about some of the things you get back in the trade-off:

• Frogans addresses maintain a nice and concise format. No crazy long URLS with subdirectories and unintelligible variables in the frogansphere.
• Tracing back your steps won’t make you dizzy.

The Frogans Player contextual menu contains a list of your recently visited frogans, which is in effect a list of recently looked-up frogans addresses. Since a frogans address refers to an entire frogans as a whole, and not to individual slides, this list is going to be much quicker and cleaner than what you’d expect in a Web browser.

I’m not saying that the history menu in Web browsers is for the birds. Web pages often contain amounts of information that wouldn’t be appropriate in the smaller frogans format, so it makes more sense on the Web to be able to find an individual page without considering its context within a site.

That the frogans address refers to the entire frogans should help remind frogans publishers of the importance of the context of each frogans slide within a frogans. This in turn should boost the functionality of browsing frogans backwards and the frogansphere in general through encouraging cohesiveness of content in frogans overall.

There may be those who will be quick to believe that a frogans address is little more than a dressed-up URL, that it exists merely as a mechanism for financing Frogans Technology development and the MFN (Main Frogans Network). Hogwash, I tell you. Dare I suggest that with frogans addressing we’re witnessing yet another step up the IT evolutionary ladder?

While ultimately frogans FSDL documents and other resources that make up frogans are transferred by HTTP, as Web pages are, the implementation of the frogans address as intermediary adds a layer of usability for the end-user and convenience for the publisher, leading to all-around functionality for everybody.

For end-users, they access frogans using a format of addressing that is really simple (ex: “frogans*example“, or “frogans*example.extension“). If only the Web were so easy. Ever copy and paste a URL only to have left out the “h” in “http://”? Or you’ve typed two “w”s instead of three? Or how about trying to recite a complete URL over the phone, and finally saying “Oh, I’ll send you an email…”

For frogans publishers the convenience of the frogans address is in its flexibility. The address of a frogans is independent from where on the Internet its resource files are physically located. A frogans address stays the same regardless of where its frogans is hosted, at what IP address or domain name, or in which directory. That information is instead kept in the registrant’s frogans address settings, and can be updated at any moment – and without the kind of delay that you get when, say, you want to redirect your domain name.

If a publisher of frogans so chooses, they can group frogans together in the frogans’ contextual menu by their addresses. This is done by giving different frogans a common “frogans family name” in their frogans address, and differentiating them with personalized extensions.

Remember way back when, two paragraphs ago, when I gave as an example “frogans*example.extension“? Here “example” is a frogans family name. “extension” is its extension (duh). The person who has registered “frogans*example” or “frogans*example.extension” has the exclusive right to use “example” as a family name in as many other frogans addresses as they like, each having its own extension:

• frogans*example.butterflies
• frogans*example.fish
• frogans*example.nets
• …

When you visit a frogans, the Frogans Player will detect the addresses of other frogans sharing the same family name and display them in the contextual menu of the frogans being visited. This is useful for associating different frogans thematically, particularly if it is desirable to quickly have a several different frogans family members on-screen simultaneously.

Don’t confuse the extension with a subdirectory. They have nothing in common. The frogans address extension denotes a unique frogans address for an entirely unique frogans. Different frogans in the same frogans family don’t even have to have the same hosting, for instance. Hop away, little frogans. Be freeee!