A mix of innovation, collaboration through standards, reverse engineering, content studies, and fussy politics, has created the somewhat messy yet beautiful platform we have today. It enables us to publish anything from a simple document to a complex application. This talk will dive into some of the low-level details of that platform as well as explain those fussy politics. More info at: https://fronteers.nl/congres/2012/sessions/building-the-web-platform-anne-van-kesteren