In the beginning there was the HTML web browser... Bring on the present and we have personalised reader apps and responsive layouts.
HTML was created to provide structure and formatting to text and other elements so that the content would flow freely and be optimised to any screen. This meant that the browser had control over how the content was displayed. Today, the web designer has more control thanks to the advent of CSS.
(Original layout of webpages proposed at cern)
The "vanilla HTML" era changed when newer browsers and web standards were introduced. Designers wrangled more control - stylesheets and animation gave way to websites that overused banners, blinking text, animated gifs and sound effects to satisfy the commercialisation of the web - bombarding users and their internet connections.
Luckily the garish attention-grabbing websites went out of fashion. Web design matured and started taking on a more minimal, content-first approach. However, there was still a shortfall - websites would rarely resize to different screen sizes - leaving the user to awkwardly zoom or pan content.
With the advent of smartphones and tablets offering a plethora of screen sizes, website design has had to adjust to be accessible across a multitude of devices.
"Responsive web design" has now become the pragmatic fashion - a "tailored for your device" ethos - with websites magically reformatting to the constraints of the devices they are viewed on.
This could be thought of as a resurgence of original ideals of the web - people aren’t happy having to view a desktop website on their phone, driving web designers and developers to provide an experience that doesn’t discriminate based on device.
(http://jessicahische.is/ - viewable on desktop and mobile)
Now there is also another path that has been emerging. Smartphone apps such as Flipboard, Pulse and Pocket offer the user a remix of website content - serving up articles based on interest in a consistent, clean and well formatted layout. These apps aren’t replacing web browsers but they do offer an interesting alternative for people to consume information and content void from the website designers vision for how the content would otherwise be navigated and consumed.
(flipboard and pulse apps)
These apps are usually well designed, easy to use and make keeping up with your various daily streams of content much easier to consume.
It appears that the same methodology that was thought of by the creators of HTML is coming back in new forms such as this. The good news is that content consumers now have multiple ways of viewing the same content - just pick the device, browser or app that suits you!