Everyone is excited about HTML5 and Here’s Why

Caroline McCarthy of Google insights wrote this piece regarding HTML5

“Blending ‘traditional’ HTML with functionalities once reserved for more advanced languages like XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it’s thrilled the digital world with its potential: Plugin-free video players; local storage and caching; and lightning-fast load times eliminating lag. Best of all, HTML5 can be carried over to smartphone browsers, too, meaning that you may no longer need to develop an arsenal of apps for different platforms. More complex species of videos, games, and interactive experiences can now come straight to the browser – no downloading required. For developers, marketers, and users alike, this is big news.”

Roger McNamee spoke at the Paley Center back in July 2011. What struck me about Roger’s talk were his thought on HTML5 and this will not solely be a programming problem, but a creativity problem. Whomever figures it out in a major way is going to win big time per McNamme.

“HTML5 allows you to treat a web page with an entire new canvas. HTML5 is blank sheet of paper and creativity rules again.” - Roger McNamee Watch the full video here. 

Steve Wozniack said: “Write the book yourself, don’t be crude, be an artists.” He’s the guy that helped Steve Jobs program the software that Apple’s success was built off of.  Might be worth considering this art philosophy by one the more  ground-breaking programmers Silicon Valley has ever seen.

Says Tom Uglow, a London-based lead in the Google Creative Lab. “HTML5 has created a sense of optimism that is uplifting for designers and developers alike. That’s a positive for the internet, and, more importantly, for the user. It doesn’t matter too much as long as it drives the web forward.”

These sentiments align with what Mark Zuckerberg told Robert Scoble at the tail-end of 2010. Zuckerberg said, “the web moving towards HTML5, which is nothing but a good thing for everyone online.”

Clearly, HTML5 is something worth paying attention to and there seems to be a big opportunity here, from a business standpoint, from a design standpoint, from an original creativity standpoint, ultimately, an artistic standpoint.

Lately some fantastic examples of the HTML5 design capabilities have been popping up. Artists and brands making use of the code to create real cool user-experiences and visual aesthetics that are so clean and accessible. Check them out below.

Hobo Tales
Brief but cute story in the vein of a children’s book online.

Edits Quarterly
Awesome stab at what a magazine can look like online. A great mix of editorial and visuals here. Something gritty yet beautiful at the same time.

Frank Chimero
Brilliant designer, speaker, and teacher outlines a little story about design and our jobs to create a better future.

Inception Story Overview
This smart chap out of the UK name Matt Dempsey created this great explanation of the Chris Nolan film, Inception. Too cool.

Nike Jumpman
Nike has jumped on board and this Nike Jumpman site is S I C K!

Audi
Audi takes selling cars online to a whole new level.

If you want to check out a hardcore education on how you can utilize HTML5 then see HTML5 Rocks