Commentary

HTML5 Coming On Strong

by Steve Smith , Staff Writer, October 28, 2010

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Some of us Mediaposties spent the last two days on the left coast hosting the OMMA Entertainment and OMMA Mobile shows in LA. Two themes cut across both shows. First brands love video and seem to have every intention of investing more in it. Second, all eyes are on mobility and especially the migration of video off of the Web.

The branding effectiveness sof video came through loud and clear at OMMA Entertainment where studio and TV marketers echoed the same point - give me the opportunity to put my video message in front of the prospective customer. Banners and even rich media are all well and good. But showing someone the trailer or a clip is what seals the deal. The next day at OMMA Mobile I was surprised to hear the same message. Jon Hadl of BrandinHand, who does the mobile media buying for P&G and many others, said he was increasing investment in mobile video considerably. As one of the attendees told me after the show, "video was the main message."

Part and parcel of the bullishness over mobile video especially was also the rise of HTML5. This was on many panelists' lips yesterday, but not because anyone was deliberately siding with Steve Jobs' infamous disdain for Flash. Instead, many people in the mobile arena saw HTML5 as relief from the his cost of building and maintaining discreet apps for the multiple smart phone platforms. The mobile Web got a lot of love at the show, as many panelists recommended it as a source for more app-like functionality under HTML5 and easier deployment of video that adapted to individual handsets.

In fact this trend towards HTML5 is quantifiable. Recently MeFeedia issued its October report, which showed that 54% of Web video available is now HTML5. The company says that the number of video streams that are HTML5 compatible (in most cases with H.264 encoding) has doubled in the past five months. Mobile is a key driver of this migration, MeFeedia argues. Flash remains king of the video domain on desktops, but clearly publishers are getting ready for an easier make once, post once, access from anywhere approach.

The rate of publisher interest and growth in HTML5 compatibility has gone up fivefold just since January when only 10% of online video was HTML5 compatible.

mobile, video

2 comments about "HTML5 Coming On Strong".

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Thom Kennon from Free Radicals, October 28, 2010 at 2:36 p.m.
Steve, once again, thanks for reporting insightful and actionable news from the front.
Along with some colleagues (you growing handful know who you are) we welcome the increasing recognition by the rest of the world that apps were (ok, are) but a bridge to the future of the open source mobile web.
The increasing ubiquity and application of HTML5 is both a harbinger and key enabler of this evolution. Come on people, dig it: Apps are one-offs. Apps are expensive. Apps live in walled gardens. Apps are exclusive. Apps don't integrate. Apps are short shelf-lifers.
"The mobile web". Say it slow, savourly and it sounds like Homer Simpson himself is in your mouth. In a good way.
@tkennon | bigevidence.blogspot.com
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Steve Anderson from Doovle Ltd, October 28, 2010 at 6:24 p.m.

For all you HTML5 fans, may the band wagon continue.Our happy contribution has been to enable our customers only to have to store a single H264 MP4 video file that is compatible with both Flash and HTML5 players, dramatically reducing the cost of cloud storage.Add to this we have also solved the problem of instant time point playing for iPhone and iPad users .

For video search users, it is important that they can click a search result and immediately start watching the scene they were searching for. The iPad and iPhone do not normally allow HTML5 streamed videos to “auto play”, nor do they make it easy to jump in a single click to a defined start-time. The current lack of a “start time” parameter in the HTML5 video tag definition has made life awkward for deep video search providers. But we have solved this problem, enabling you to deploy deep video search for iPhone and iPad users, ensuring that the end-user experience is the same as for Flash-based search and delivery systems with instant time point playing direct from search results. So if you want to know how give us a shout , without a doubt Thoms comments are going to ring true a lot quicker than we think .