HTML5 promises to overhaul the Web. Will it deliver?

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the web by linking one document to another — called hypertext — it was a breakthrough. Since then an almost unimaginable pile of functionality has been poured onto the rickety underpinnings of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that got the web started. With the advent of Web 2.0, smartphones, and now tablets, the once simple language to run the web has turned into a fractured Humpty-Dumpty of plug-ins, protocols, codecs, incompatible browsers, and platforms.

Every web application developer or content site that wants a top-notch reading experience for its users not only has to take into account several different computer browsers but develop separately for Apple’s mobile devices, Android, and BlackBerry if they want to reach their entire audience. Flash, the most ambitious attempt to span platforms with a single language has run into a wall when it comes to Apple and suffers from being a proprietary solution.

html5 logoFor users the situation is just as frustrating, with a constant trial and error of which applications will run in which browser or on which phone. And for video there is a never-ending hunt for the right player or codec to accomplish what in this age seems like it should be a simple task. Even worse, switching computers or phones or even upgrading to a tablet can mean having to switch applications, another painful and seemingly unnecessary complexity to modern life on the web.

HTML5 is designed to fix all those problems in one grand transition to a massively overhauled version of the web’s most popular language: HTML. The new version makes media — especially video — into a first class citizen, allowing it to be streamed natively without fiddling with plug-ins or rifling through browsers looking for one that works. It also adds true support for web applications, knitting together the hodgepodge of applications environments like JavaScript, Adobe’s Flash, and ActionScript into a unified and universal environment built around an extended JavaScript and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Along with streaming media, the surge in print publications moving to the web is one of the largest trends in online computing. Unfortunately web standards have proven inadequate to the task, requiring the invention of specialized reader front ends like Zinio and Kindle on the PC, and hand-coded applications for smartphones and tablets like those from CNN, the New York Times, and just about every periodical with the resources to hire their own programming team. Hearst has already starting converting magazines to HTML5 and expects to have most of their transition completed by the end of 2012.

New York Times Chrome web app written in HTML5
New York Times Chrome Web Store Application written in HTML5

HTML5 adds native tags for common document structures including headers, footers, sections, captions, and figures so that the browser itself will be able to intelligently display multi-page documents without plug-ins or custom applications. A publication will be able to create a single version of their content and have it render effectively across every compliant browser and platform, including phones and tablets. Because HTML5 also standardizes access to user interactions that same content can be fully interactive on every platform.

Books and magazines? What about GAMES?