Heeeeeeere's WebM!

With Larry Page (co-founder, Google) replacing Eric Schmidt, all eyes are on the company to see what new culture Page may bring. Perhaps the most recent push of WebM is an indication. 

Google Chrome browser dropped support for H.264 in January 2011, around the same time Page took the helm. There is a distinct commitment to promote the HTML5 platform and this has been made even more apparent with YouTube announcing that it is WebM transcoding all of the new videos uploaded and at the same time "reformatting" the existing library.


According to the YouTube Blog, the H.264 video codec will still be accepted as an uploaded format but WebM is the playback.


Opera, and Mozilla are fully behind this move and the recently released IE9 is HTML5 ready.  So we will be seeing more an more video content streaming to HTML5 based players embedded in web pages, blogs etc.


This translates big-time for the smartphone market.  HTML5 can run on a smartphone with far less overhead than Flash.  As Android OS based phones continue to expand into the marketplace, content providers will be scrambling to transcode their titles and streaming video platforms will need to bite the bullet and swap out the Flash based front and back end systems.


Below is a sample of HTML5 based video.  Note you will need an HTML5 compatible browser to view WebM and you will need to Join the HTML5 trial