Wow, it’s been a while since I updated this, really should use it to it’s full potential, especially as FLASH Icon MAY NOT BE AROUND FOR MUCH LONGER!
Okay, that’s a huge lie.
Sure, Apple may be killing off Flash on their products and HTML 5 can explode videos (among other cool stuff) but while that’s the future the present most certainly sees Flash as being around for a long while.
The <video> tag may (very) slowly kill off Flash videos but you won’t be seeing the end of games and sites built with with Flash for a while.
Some facts (and by facts I mean things that I’m currently thinking)
  • Flash has about a 98% adoption rate on non-iPhone/iPad products. That won’t change any time soon and despite it’s flaws it’s still a very good way to embed video. Remember Adobe Icon have been doing this for 10 years and HTML is only just starting to do this.
  • Begun the codec wars has and until there’s a victor or agreement between H.264 and Ogg is resolved, HTML 5 adoption is going to be hurt a lot. This could potentially even have a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray type outcome with people being reluctant to jump on the new tech and something better (digital distribution in that example) is almost ready.
  • It will be long time until everyone’s browser can display HTML 5. Surprisingly it doesn’t work in IE6! By the time companies update their browsers and even all browsers are able to display videos in HTML 5 it could be close to 2020!
  • If HTML 5 video doesn’t work in some unforseen aspect how will it be updated? Do we wait 10 years for HTML 6? While browser developers will be able to make edits to how things display themselves (bonus!) when I think about how the different browsers render just now I don’t look forward to seeing another element that will require hacks.
  • How can videos be monetised in HTML 5? Forcing viewers to watch an ad before showing the clip is possible in Flash, and I guess you can add ads directly to the video before uploading but I don’t see how it’s possible to append an ad to the beginning of a video (which doesn’t mean it isn’t) in HTML 5. Somebody smarter than me care to wade in? Overlay ads should still be possible but if H.264 charges $2,000 (per region) for videos over 12 minutes that you receive revenue on it’s going to be pretty expensive running ads on these videos (again, unless Ogg wins).
  • The play/pause controls on HTML 5 are ugly as sin.
  • Actionscript Icon, Flex and Flash still allow more creativity than Javascript, HTML and CSS. That’s not to say things can’t be accomplished with HTML.
  • What HTML 5 may mean is more people disabling Flash in their browser (like an adblocker) this could cause problems for publishers. As an inconvenience, disabling and enabling Flash to watch a video is a pain in the ass. If I could still do 99% of what I want on the web but see 50% less ads I’d be inclined to just disable Flash entirely.
  • Will HTML 5 actually kill Silverlight more than Flash?
  • Will SVG get a boost from HTML 5?
Okay, I’m done. HTML 5 raises a lot of issues (and a lot of SEO opportunities!) but I don’t see it killing Flash off just yet.

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