Hayling Island Internet Marketing and Technology Blog

Jun 9, 2009

As a web developer, you are constrained by the environment in which you develop, namely the web browser. The language of the internet is HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) this is currently at version 4, but version 5 is around the corner and the search giant Google is pushing hard for it to become the standard.

Working on the web can be frustrating at times, making sure your web site appears correctly accross all web browsers and mobile devices can be time consuming and soul destroying too. On the other hand the internet can be an exciting, ever changing platform to build on, it does not take long for new technology and trends to find their way into part of your everyday life, like Facebook, You Tube, Google Maps, I sometimes wonder how I would do with out these.

 

Currently new trends and web applications that pop up on the web are just using old technology in a new and innovative manner, the technology is old, we  have just become better at working around the limitations.

 

Web pages are built with a mark up language HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) we are currently on HTML version 4, this standard was released in 1997 so it has been around a long time. The improvements of the internet since HTML 4's release are gigantic, web pages from 1997 now look as if a 15 year old has knocked something up in a home bedroom on Microsoft Word.

 

In 2007 the W3C the internet's. body that establishes the standards for HTML, started to release the guide for HTML 5, a promising, new and exciting world for the internet. Typically new technology standards are usually very slow to catch on, as users of the internet need to upgrade thier browser technology, Internet Explorer 6 is still holding back the use of transparent PNG graphics and this browser was releases in 2001! For this reason I would not normally get so excited about a new technology coming to the Internet and I was not until I watched the video from Google IO.

 

Google IO was a whole showcase on how great HTML 5 is going to be, the thing that was going through my mind was that HTML 5 would not come to the public domain until an absolutely killer web app forces users to upgrade to HTML 5 compliant browsers such as Opera, Firefox, Chrome and Safari Microsoft does have plans to incorporate some elements of HTML 5 into Internet Explorer 8, but I guess we should wait to see the proof first. Luckily for us Google has also thought about this and this is where the real big excitement comes from. On day two of Google IO, Google announced its brand new killer app, that fully incorporates HTML 5, Google Wave. After watching the hour and a half presentation I could see such an amazing potential for this product, in brief it is email for the modern internet, with so many fantastic features I could not do them justice here, go check the presentation out for your self.

 

The importance of Google fully supporting HTML 5 by releasing Google Wave is that internet users accross the globe are going to want to upgrade thier browser to take advantage of this killer app and help push the internet to a whole new level. I am very excited about this period in web development and think it can only lead to good things.

 

For many years it seems that the internet has been held back by the limitations of Microsofts Internet Explorer 6, now with the advent of HTML 5 on the horizon the major anchor appears to be Microsofts lack of support. This time however there is another big player on the scene, along with many others accross the globe, I hoping that Google will be able to become a much more responsible, more forward thinking role model for the internet.