AMP

[wseltzer]

https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/spec.html

[wseltzer]

https://discourse.wicg.io/t/profiled-html-e-g-amp-friends/1979 “Profiled HTML (e.g. AMP + friends)” in WICG

[plehegar]

[[
AMP forces technical restrictions on publishers that limit their ability to create value for their customers, limit their ability to further engage the user beyond reading the initial article, and prevent them iterating on their business model with the freedom they would normally have. Added to this AMP may not actually be any faster than the publisher’s own webpages.
]]
https://trib.tv/2017/03/31/amp-breaking-news/ mentions some issues in the format, platform,

[wseltzer]

Use cases: performance on high-latency or low-bandwidth network links. Can we address that through standards? not necessarily by adopting AMP as a spec, but illuminating some problems to be solved.

[wseltzer]

https://www.w3.org/2017/Talks/dhm-embedded-webapps/ and other talks in Embedded Web Apps session of https://www.w3.org/Member/Meeting/2017ac/April/Agenda.html#day1

[plehegar]

[[
The global reach of these platforms further extends the availability of the 2B+ AMP pages and 900K domains with AMP on the web.
]]
https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2017/05/18/turbocharging-amp/

[koalie]

Google's AMP is bad – bad in a potentially web-destroying way. Google AMP is bad news for how the web is built, it's bad news for publishers of credible online content, and it's bad news for consumers of that content. Google AMP is only good for one party: Google. Google, and possibly, purveyors of fake news.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad/

[koalie]

https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site/

[ylafon]

https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/distributed-content/
and
https://www.w3.org/blog/TAG/2017/07/27/distributed-and-syndicated-content-whats-wrong-with-this-picture/

[svgeesus]

Ethan Marcotte on AMP as purely a mobile SEO strategy, a proprietary markup, and harmful:
https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/ampersand/

[iherman]

Ethan Marcotte also refers to this page:

http://adrianroselli.com/2015/10/googles-amp-html.html

which tries to keep a list of a bunch of references on why AMP is considered by many to be bad for the Web...

[ylafon]

Use of AMP for phishing:

https://www.salon.com/2017/09/24/russian-hackers-exploited-a-google-flaw-and-google-wont-fix-it/

[dontcallmedom]

Important news on this https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/improving-urls-for-amp-pages/amp/ ; strongly related to #96

[ylafon]

http://ampletter.org

(probably not yet official)

[koalie]

https://www.socpub.com/articles/chris-graham-why-google-amp-threat-open-web-15847

Here are the main issues many have with AMP:

1. Developed in secret and controlled by Google.
   For decades we have used open practices for developing new web standards. We have RFCs (public consultation on proposed standards) and various standards bodies such as the W3C. This is really important as it allows fair collaboration on the standards we are all expected to use. That leads to better standards that are free of bias.

[...]

What Google needs to do to 'not be evil'
There is little that is technically wrong with AMPs approach at the level of implementing the technology on a website. So to make AMP palatable Google just need to:

1. Transfer control.

Google needs to transfer full control of the AMP specification to the W3C, enabling industry and public participation. Google can then provide staff to work on the specs but it has to be through this public forum and open to others (including from Google's competitors, small businesses, and enthusiasts).

[koalie]

Standardizing lessons learned from AMP, 2018-03-08, Posted by Malte Ubl, Tech Lead for the AMP Project at Google.

Inside Google’s plan to make the whole web as fast as AMP, By Dieter Bohn, Mar 8, 2018, 12:00pm EST

Also: GH Page tracking web standards and web features proposals related to AMP

[ylafon]

Related, see mozilla/standards-positions#29

[RByers]

FWIW, I'm now the one leading the effort within the Chrome team to work with the web standards community, Google Search and the AMP teams on an approach to enabling AMP-like user experiences without requiring any particular libraries etc..

Finding the optimal balance of incentives in making the web better for everyone ASAP is challenging, and reasonable people will disagree on the exact approaches. But as a long time leader around openness in Chrome, I hope the community will give me a chance to prove that our goals are all well aligned here. I believe we all want a flourishing open ecosystem that results in great user experiences and financial opportunities for the whole world.

I'm looking forward to being part of an open discussion with the standards community around all of this, and using the feedback to guide the chromium project's effort to push the envelope of what's possible on the web. If there's interest, I'd love to help facilitate some discussion at TPAC around the meta issues here (along with the specific per-group spec proposals of course).

[wseltzer]

Thanks @RByers! We're trying to figure out whether there's a collection of ideas or use cases -- and participants interested in working through them together. Eager to see that discussion happen here or elsewhere (pointers welcome).

[KenjiBaheux]

Pinging this issue given that TPAC is coming fast.

I'm working with Rick Byers on this, and would love to have face to face discussions with anyone interested in this topic, or the technologies that we've been exploring to solve the underlying issues, i.e. Web Packaging and Portals.

[RByers]

Kenji and I created a TPAC session idea for this, feedback appreciated.

[RByers]

In particular, the W3C TAG finding authored by @triblondon recommends exploration in three areas, which the Chrome team is now actively pursuing:

1. Pre-rendering: a key use case for portals, in development in chromium
2. Opaque IFRAMEs: we weren't able to come up with a design exactly in that direction, but we believe portals, along with a set of feature policies, is similar, and can be used to implement the experiences discussed such as the AMP top stories carousel.
3. Web Packaging: signed exchange support is now available in Chrome behind a flag, and will soon be available by origin trial.

In addition, Chrome is making more objective performance metrics for pages available publicly via the CrUX report. Google Search is beginning to rely more on objective performance metrics. With help from the web standards community, we believe it's possible to address the limitations of the web platform which led to the need for AMP.

[wseltzer]

Thanks @RByers , we'll look forward to the TPAC breakout. Key for W3C perspective will be getting input from other stakeholders in the technology, or others whose use cases could make them participants.

[RByers]

Yep, understood - thank you! I hope at least @patrickkettner will be able to represent Edge and Bing team's perspective on all this.

[tobie]

I've been working with Google on a new governance model for AMP which was recently announced. Part of the goals of this new model is to give a stronger voice to a wider variety of stakeholders and in particular to the broader Web community. Hence the creation of an Advisory Committee which will notably include @LJWatson and @edent.

Liaison with SDOs is on the AC's draft charter. So I'm looking forward to see how we can work more closely together to make AMP a better Web citizen and funnel some of its learnings back into the Web platform.

I'll be joining the session on AMP at TPAC. Looking forward to see you then and answer any questions you might have.

[svgeesus]

Closing, not because AMP is unimportant, but because it seems the work is progressing elsewhere