Publications, media companies and web developers have a new way to provide video on the Flash-free zones that are the iPhone and the impending iPad: using HTML5 to stream video within the Safari browser.
Brightcove, which provides an online video backend system for several websites including Wired.com, said Monday that it will help media companies and software developers stream video to the iPad and other platforms using HTML5.
A welcome “enabling" technology in the short-term, given the lack of support for Adobe's Flash on the iPhone OS, Brightcove's new HTML5 implementation also sets the table for new possibilities in video-driven mobile apps that bypass any platform gatekeeper -- just as Google created an HTML5 version of “Google Voice," which has failed to get approval by Apple as an iPhone OS app. The implications for owning the user relationship -- to say nothing of all revenues -- are considerable.
Brightcove's HTML5 technology detects which device a user is using in order to adjust design elements, displays playlists and, most importantly, streams H.264-encoded video to iPhone OS devices that do not support Flash (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch). Over the coming year, Brightcove plans to add more advanced features to its HTML5 tool kit including customized, branded video players, advertising management, analytics and social sharing between users.
To put their videos on the iPad's the large screen, websites with videos, including The New York Times (a Brightcove investor) and Time are already building HTML5 websites with interactive elements and video streams. Brightcove senior vice president of marketing Jeff Whatcott told Wired.com that a majority of Brightcove's thousand- plus clients will begin rolling out HTML5 sites for iPhone OS devices later this spring, too.
Some reporting on the topic has painted Brightcove's HTML5 developer kit as the death of Flash, although Gizmodo was an exception, pointing out, “let's be clear: Flash is sticking around, for many reasons, regardless of Apple's opinion of it."
Others seem to have forgotten that there are plenty of (Flash- friendly) devices that aren't the iPad -- like the many that will be running Google's Android OS -- and lots of browsers that aren't mobile Safari.
Brightcove, which provides an online video backend system for several websites including Wired.com, said Monday that it will help media companies and software developers stream video to the iPad and other platforms using HTML5.
A welcome “enabling" technology in the short-term, given the lack of support for Adobe's Flash on the iPhone OS, Brightcove's new HTML5 implementation also sets the table for new possibilities in video-driven mobile apps that bypass any platform gatekeeper -- just as Google created an HTML5 version of “Google Voice," which has failed to get approval by Apple as an iPhone OS app. The implications for owning the user relationship -- to say nothing of all revenues -- are considerable.
Brightcove's HTML5 technology detects which device a user is using in order to adjust design elements, displays playlists and, most importantly, streams H.264-encoded video to iPhone OS devices that do not support Flash (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch). Over the coming year, Brightcove plans to add more advanced features to its HTML5 tool kit including customized, branded video players, advertising management, analytics and social sharing between users.
To put their videos on the iPad's the large screen, websites with videos, including The New York Times (a Brightcove investor) and Time are already building HTML5 websites with interactive elements and video streams. Brightcove senior vice president of marketing Jeff Whatcott told Wired.com that a majority of Brightcove's thousand- plus clients will begin rolling out HTML5 sites for iPhone OS devices later this spring, too.
Some reporting on the topic has painted Brightcove's HTML5 developer kit as the death of Flash, although Gizmodo was an exception, pointing out, “let's be clear: Flash is sticking around, for many reasons, regardless of Apple's opinion of it."
Others seem to have forgotten that there are plenty of (Flash- friendly) devices that aren't the iPad -- like the many that will be running Google's Android OS -- and lots of browsers that aren't mobile Safari.
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