On the W3C Agenda: Headlights 2012

The Open Web Platform is expanding rapidly, and with it, the pace of new ideas for the Web. We launched Community Groups as a scalable way for Members and non-Members alike to come together around their Web interests.

This grassroots approach to introducing new ideas is necessary to ensure that W3C's agenda remains highly relevant to industry, but it may not always be sufficient. Longer term projects or efforts that may require significant resources demand a more strategic approach.

In recent weeks W3C created task forces to develop strategic proposals for eleven topics. Six would affect W3C's technical agenda:

• Social networking standards
• Cloud computing standards
• Digital publishing standards
• Payment standards
• Digital marketing on the Web
• Network usage good practices

Three would strengthen our developer outreach:

• Strategic developer relations
• Developer certification
• Updated mobileOK checker

Two relate to organizational growth:

• Working Group infrastructure
• W3C Twentieth Anniversary in 2014

The eleven task forces are underway and are developing proposals with community participation. The W3C Membership will devote time to the proposals at its May Advisory Committee meeting, so the task forces benefit from the input of the entire Membership of W3C. The task forces will refine the proposals in June. In July, W3C management will prioritize them and allocate resources to a portion of them.

To learn more about the proposals, please see our public wiki.