The Internet enables the creation of communities. These communities collaborate on new ideas, exchange value with each other through business transactions, expand knowledge with shared information, and create real world advancement through the coordination actions. Simply stated, the Internet enables communal participation. But what if the Internet is not fully available to you? What would it be like if you could not participate?

It took the last 100 years to build the brick and mortar infrastructure of the Internet, yet in merely 10 years this infrastructure has been populated with the entire content of the World Wide Web. The growth of the Web is a prime example of a "contagent model" of modern expansion. A model under which tremendous advancement takes place in a short period of time with only a broad sense of direction. Unfortunately, contagent models do not accomodate the deployment of standards, and often breed technological, and in the case of the Web, social inoperability.

In the rush to deploy the Web, we constructed an information and service infrastructure that is in many cases, is not operable with the assistive technologies used by people with disabilities. The challenge we now face is the transformation of the existing Web environment into an environment that is built on standards that are open to all edge devices, including assistive technology, PDA units, telephones, televisions, radios, and any other device that can provide users access to information and services from the Internet.

According to the most recent census data, there are approximately 54 million Americans living with a physical or mental disability. That is 1 out of every 5 Americans who could be browsing your information, or using your eCommerce services, or participating in the forums of your Web domain. It should not be difficult to develop a strong business case to expand the reach of an Internet domain to 20% of the American population.

As the Web becomes a source of services, as much as it is a source of information, it will become critical for companies to redeploy their Internet domains under a web services model using modern standards such as XML. XML allows the information and services of an Internet domain to easily be transformed into formats suitable for XML-compatible applications and devices. Using XML, a Web site can dynamically transform its presentation layer to suit the needs of a user based on his or her preferred mode of access, which could be a standard web browser application, an assistive technology device or simply the telephone.

Section 508 of the amended Rehabilitation Act of 1998 requires Federal agencies to make the content and functionality of their Web sites available to people with disabilities. The Assistive Technology Act of 1998 extends the requirements of section 508 to state governments who receive federal funds. If you are a federal or state agency, or are affiliated with federal or state programs, you are likely obligated to have a fully accessible web presence. If you are a vendor of information, products, or services, and would like to do business with Federal or state customers over the web, your web site and web services must be accessible.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you want to create up to 54 million new relationships?
• Do you want to build a technical foundation that enables your Internet domain to be accessed by any edge device, such as mobile devices?
• Are you affiliated with a federal and/or state level programs for funding or revenue?
• Would you like to be a role model for universal access?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should start your accessible transformation now with a free subscription to the AlwaysAccessible™ Network.