I remember the first time I learned about YouTube. It was Andy Samberg’s coming out party with Lazy Sunday.
Lazy Sunday was YouTube’s coming out party.
YouTube’s coming out party meant Flash video became the way we watched video on the web*.
Flash video remains the most pervasive way that video is shared, watched and streamed across the web. Despite the iOS embargo.
A large portion of my work revolves around Flash video.
But things are changing.
HTML5 is here.
HTML5 means <video> will supplant Flash as the de-facto way in which video is distributed across the internet. To-date, the biggest question mark surrounding HTML5 is support.
Any given HTML5 feature requires a look-through at support across the big players: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari. This is true from local storage to <video>, from WebSockets to <canvas>.
I’ll save the details, but I believe that “support” worries for HTML5—and specifically <video>—will be assuaged as soon as HTML5 <video> has it’s “Lazy Sunday” moment.
When the most important thing on the web—which happens every 2.47 seconds—becomes an HTML5 video, anyone in the web audience that cannot watch the video will figure out why, and they’ll upgrade their browser.
Imagine how crazy the web will be once HTML5 <video> has it’s Lazy Sunday moment … and the web world learns that encoding and adding to a website is typically as simple as <video><source>myfile.mp4</source></video>**.
*It hurts to remember that prior to Lazy Sunday, YouTube and Flash video—we often had to deal with embedded MOVs, WMVs or something equally as awful.
** Codec compatibility remains an issue and I’ll save that for another post. But my hunch is Chrome’s support for .mp4 will make it a dominant browser once HTML5 media becomes widespread. We’ll see.
