Developers of today are already hard at work on a standard that can change the entire web as we know it. It’s known as HTML 5.0, and some recent press releases have called into question the dominance of video browser addons like Microsoft Silverlight.
Seeing that video has grown to such a crucial aspect of the modern web user experience, it can be weird to be reminded of the idea that a large part of the content we see comes to us through a web browser addon. There’s not much inherently incorrect with this, despite a few reservations.
Defining Rich Content in a Standard Way
But the world wide web is based on open, compatible standards. Right now, all the standards for flash video are in the hands of Adobe. While there’s no chance of Adobe going bust, the fact is that having each and every ‘rich’ web video filtered through the plugin of a private developer moves against the open standards that underlay the www itself.
And so HTML 5.0 has chosen to tackle this conundrum. Now, groups of web developers are deep at work hammering out a new standard for the world wide web, one that shall integrate rich documents and make it possible for videos and various multimedia to be located directly in the HTML protocol, not filtered through browser plugins.
What HTML 5.0 Means for the Designer of Today
This is important because the www as we know it could seem vastly different in the coming decades. Although a lot of the rich components will definitely mirror the ideal elements of the rich plugins we’re used to, the amount of innovation achievable within the standard browser is going to go beyond that.
If you take a look at what companies like Google have managed to do with current HTML practices (think of how fluid Google Maps works), and all the innovative developments that have been placed into our web browsers, consider an entirely new layer of possibilities beyond that.
Will This Mean We Have to Learn Yet Another Development Standard?
Most Likely not as soon as we’d all hope. Web standards require a very great time to perfect and get refined, as they must be completely universal, accessible, and work properly across all standardized browser platforms. It’s exactly like creating a brand new language, and this example is definitely going to be the most complicated up until now.
The majority of reasonable guesses place the time-frame for full, rich HTML 5.0 roll-out somewhere deep in the future, up to eight years. Although parts of the standard shall become used much before that (some are already being integrated as I type my article), the full acceptance by all browsers, crossing all platforms, is really too complex and needs too much work for a quick integration.
The Opinions of the Plugin Makers
Publicly, they aren’t very worried. Inside the companies, who can say? According to all three browser addon makers, there shall always be a place for rich plug-ins, and building an entire company on one function (let’s say, flash that plays video) is not a 100% profit-builder anyway.
Once the HTML 5.0 standard is widespread, plugin developers will have had many years to push further advancements that won’t be the same as the new standard, and surely we shall likely be in the same mess all over again.
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