Love it or loathe it, technology will continue to march on and HTML5 is proving to be the new standard for HTML. The evolution of HTML into the HTML5 specification offers new ways to visualise and engage with information and media. If you are a web designer or developer it’s worth considering investing the time to learn html5… it is the future.

You can use HTML5 to display video including the ability to take a snapshot out of a video,show snapshots of each frame, overlay a video on top of another video, and using a canvas element, to rip a video apart and let each piece continue to play. Very cool stuff, indeed.

Prior to the <video tag, third-party plug-ins had to be installed in order to view streaming video. Now, using modern browsers video can be played “right out of the box.” No “update your flash” messages, no extra downloads, No plug-ins or any kind of messing around is required to watch video.

Then there’s the new canvas element for 2D drawing. This  provides all sorts of design options and richer environments for creating animations, games and presenting information. You can create very cool animated images using vector graphics and the canvas elements.

Do you love creating rounded corners, drop shadows, adding a slide or fade effect to a drop-down menu in your web site designs? You can now do this without getting bogged down in Photoshop.
By learning CSS3 you you will find this is much quicker and easier to implement.

The other good thing is that HTML5 and CSS3 is readable by Google and therefore a whole lot more SEO friendly than our old friend Flash.
With Flash the content is embedded in the file so Google and other search engines see nothing.   With the Introduction of HTML5,CSS3 and all the  advancements in Web 2.0 Technology, many websites have now stopped adopting flash into their websites. HTML5 will is set to become the defacto web animation standard.

The major concern is with the many internet users still using web browsers that don’t support HTML5. Anybody using less than IE9 (all Internet Explorer on WinXP) won’t get a lot of joy viewing of HTML5 content.

However, the HTML5 standard will soon be properly supported by not only browsers but across many platforms.