One of the main reasons to embrace HTML5 for media playback is to make things work on the iPad. But for SoundCloud, HTML5 has also shown much more user engagement than Flash. That’s why the company switched its default widget to HTML5. Read more »
Toronto-based Polar Mobile, which provides a digital media distribution platform powering the apps of some of the biggest media companies in the world, including Conde Nast, Sports Illustrated and The Wall Street Journal, announced a new $6 million funding round on Monday. Read more »
The fourth quarter may have lacked a dominating big-event product announcement like Q3’s Facebook platform extension or Q2’s unveiling of Google+, but the NewNet world continued to buzz along. In the battle for mind share, everyone wanted to be a platform. Meanwhile, consumer and social technologies continued to gain momentum, and new vehicles for content and service discovery presented both challenges and opportunities for NewNet companies. And it is hard to ignore the overcrowded but growing world of daily deals. This quarterly report analyzes these trends and others, and it also provides a near-term outlook of trends, technologies and companies to watch in 2012. Companies mentioned in the report include Amazon, Facebook and Socialcast. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Could this finally be the year that HTML5 development takes off? AT&T (NYSE: T) plans to give those thinking about plunging ahead with a mob… Read more at paidContent »
Don’t expect the pace of change in web technologies to slow down in 2012. The web is far from dead. Social media may have anointed one huge player in Facebook, but even if there is little room for a start-from-scratch general-purpose social network, there are several companies creating useful alternative social graphs. Companies can leverage key technologies and trends in 2012 to earn revenue and gain share, whether that’s by leveraging HTML5 for rich cross-platform experiences, doing heavy data analysis or integrating collaboration tools across businesses.Companies mentioned in this report include Dropbox, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The past year in mobile has been even more eventful than most of us would have predicted. Our appetite for mobile data grew dramatically; Google’s Android continued its march to worldwide dominance; Amazon joined the tablet bandwagon; and AT&T tried and failed to acquire T-Mobile USA, among many other things. All of that activity lays the groundwork for a very promising — and very challenging — 2012. This research note serves both as a review of the major trends and events of 2011 as well as a forecast for the coming year. Companies mentioned in this report include Millennial Media, Quattro Wireless and Samsung. For a full list of companies, and to read the full research note, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Microsoft added fuel to speculations about its consumer-business prowess on Tuesday with the preview of its forthcoming Windows Store that will accompany Windows 8, but there’s a more fundamental issue facing Microsoft than whether consumers will buy Windows 8 devices. Will it have developers? Read more »
Research firm Strategy Analytics predicts sales of one billion HTML5 phones in 2013, compared to 336 million this year. The idea of mobile apps relying heavily on HTML5 — as far-fetched as it may seem — is desirable. Why? Application lock-in essentially becomes an issue of the past. Read more »
Many people had the hopes up for something truly revolutionary coming out of Spotify’s mystery event this Wednesday. Instead, we got an app platform that’s restricted to a desktop client, doesn’t offer partners any revenue and suspiciously smells like another platform bully power play. Read more »
As it hopes to build smartphone market share, Microsoft has created a new HTML5 site that allows smartphone owners to interactively demo the Windows Phone operating system. The site works on Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android platforms and illustrates the fresh and intuitive Windows Phone interface. Read more »
HTML5 development tool provider appMobi is putting together a Black Friday deal for developers as it open-sources many key HTML5 technologies that it hopes should help spur the building of more mobile web apps that can compete with native apps. Read more »
Revision3 rolled out a new, HTML5-based video player to standardize its user experience across web browsers and on mobile and connected devices. At the same time, it made a strategic decision to phase out support of Flash and throw more development resources behind HTML5 instead. Read more »
Get Satisfaction, the company that makes online customer support tools, has finally gone mobile. On Wednesday, the company announced the public beta launch of its first customer-facing mobile app, built with HTML5 and running entirely on the mobile web browser. Read more »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Adobe confirmed that it will no longer be developing mobile Flash on Thursday. It’s a major turning point for mobile dynamic content and video delivery, but it’s a step that will specifically affect Apple products and Apple users in unique ways. Here’s how. Read more »
Porn studios have long been on the forefront of technological development, adopting new media distribution models before mainstream content producers even take notice. So what does it mean that porn companies like Vivid and PinkVisual utilize HTML5, and not native apps, to get on Google TV? Read more »
Microsoft is launching Bing for Mobile Hybrid Apps this week that are built on HTML5 and take the best of native apps and blend with them with a robust mobile web experience, providing faster updates, more consistency between platforms and added search functions. Read more »
Nokia Maps, arguably one of the company’s best software products, now supports offline maps in Google Android and Apple iOS browsers, thanks to HTML5. The “neighborhood maps” are fairly small in geographical size but can help save money for those on limited mobile broadband plans. Read more »
Facebook launched its native app for Apple’s iPad on Monday, but the bigger story is wider support for web technologies as Facebook tries to be everywhere on every device. The company shared news with developers explaining how social app discovery using HTML5 can reap greater engagement. Read more »
Google unveiled its effort to create a programming language solely for building web apps. Much like there’s a shift in computer hardware to take advantage of a more connected and mobile world, Google is attempting to push a concurrent shift in software. Read more »
Spending in the mobile advertising space will be approximately $4 billion worldwide this year, so despite perceptions to the contrary, we can safely assume it’s an area to watch in the coming years. To get a clearer picture of mobile advertising’s future, it helps to first explore the current landscape — the key drivers and players involved today. With these as a backdrop, a five-year outlook such as this comes into greater focus and leads to a discussion of the major players to watch as 2016 approaches. Companies mentioned in this report include Foursquare, LivingSocial and Zynga. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
After years of focusing on desktop software, Adobe has finally gotten the memo that the future is in cloud storage, web-friendly technology, and mobile apps — and launched a “transformation” to address those markets. But Adobe’s bold new direction will almost certainly come with growing pains. Read more »
It seems so simple, so obvious: mobile developers of the world, unite behind the web and finally achieve platform independence! It turns out… Read more at paidContent »
While developers working on business apps agree that HTML5 is coming along, they’re not ready to abandon native applications. At Mobilize 2011 the theme was hybrid, where executives from Salesforce, Rhomobile and MeLLmo talked about not making a commitment to one or the other yet. Read more »
SlideShare has had a major makeover. The company has ditched Adobe Flash technology entirely, and rebuilt its website using the HTML5 markup language. Starting Tuesday, SlideShare.com now runs on HTML5 on both desktop and mobile devices. But making the big switch was not easy. Read more »
Pandora jailbroke an iPhone to get an early start on development for Apple’s iOS platform, the company’s CTO Tom Conrad revealed at Mobilize 2011 on Monday. These days, Conrad is equally excited about HTML5 and the impact it will have on connected devices. Read more »
Though the number of iOS and Android apps continues to grow by leaps and bounds, Yaron Galai bets that the trend of developing native apps is a short-term fad. Here’s why he thinks companies should reexamine their app strategy. Read more »
Apple’s operating profit growth could take a 30 percent hit by 2015, owing to the rise of HTML5, according to Bernstein Research Analyst Toni Sacconaghi Jr. But industry watchers should be wary of underestimating the continued appeal of the native iOS app for two big reasons. Read more »
When the Financial Times suddenly announced earlier this year that it was switching mobile gears from a native iOS app to build a web app, many in the industry took it as a sign that the dominance of the native mobile app was coming to an ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Whether to go web app or native may soon become a moot point with the release of new app platform and delivery network from Strobe, which allows developers to build an app in HTML5 and deploy it as both a web and native app. Read more »
One company is about to find out how web apps compete with native iOS App Store offerings in a very direct sense. The Financial Times is out of the App Store, and now depends on an HTML5 tablet-optimized site alone for presence on Apple devices. Read more »
WebKit technology is what powers some of the top browsers (especially mobile) today. While Apple and Google are its most visible champions, the support for WebKit and ancillary technologies is coming from unlikely quarters such as Amazon and Boxee. Here’s its new BFF. Read more »
We witnessed the end of an era this week. Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple’s charismatic leader has had, and will continue to have, an incredible impact on Apple’s image. But will this shift in power drastically alter the company, or will Apple continue its fiery trailblazing ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With the stock market in flux, do tech startups stand a chance when it comes to luring investors? To find out, we polled GigaOM readers on what’s hot, what’s not, which sectors might favor buyouts versus IPOs and how it all will change in the near ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As evidenced by the news this week of the new HTML5-based Kindle Cloud Reader, much of the news about HTML5’s rapid ascent has centered on mobile devices. But the fast-growing technology won’t just be a one-screen phenomenon. In fact, HTML5 is set to completely invade the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Farm Aid will have an all-star lineup of musicians performing this weekend to raise money for family farms. But those who can’t make it to Kansas City, Kan., this weekend can stream it live on the web and on a number of mobile devices. Read more »
If recent news from Twitter, Pandora, Google and Amazon is any indication, it seems that a set of technologies collectively known as HTML5 are finally starting to gain a lot of momentum, and to me, that’s a good thing — especially for the mainstream users. Read more »
Amazon’s new browser-based version of its Kindle e-book app is designed to get around Apple’s restrictions on in-app purchasing, but it is also a great example of how media companies should be looking beyond the world of apps to the future of the browser-based web. Read more »
Apple no longer allows e-book sellers to link out to their stores, which is likely why Amazon introduced a new web-based app that works outside of Apple’s official software distribution channel on Wednesday. Here’s a look at the new Kindle Cloud Reader, and its integrated store. Read more »
Users of Sony’s PS3 can now access a special TV version of the BBC’s iPlayer, complete with a navigation optimized for remote controls, personalization and video overlays. The new iPlayer is based on HTML5, showing how important the emerging standard is to the connected-TV world. Read more »
