Are you a fan of Flash? I'm not. It's one of those open-canvas technologies that let people do lots of distasteful things for sake of creativity. Don't get me wrong, it has it's place, but I rather use some of the alternatives. To be honest, I didn't have much of a need for Flash until YouTube came along. There are tons of Flash sites out there, but the killer app for Flash right now is certainly YouTube. So it's ironic that the same site that put Flash on everyone's radar is the site that will eventually kill it: YouTube. You see, until last week, the only way to view videos on YouTube's site was with Flash. What happened last week? YouTube Mobile, that's what happened. YouTube Mobile is a version of YouTube with videos encoded in H.264/3gp instead of Flash. H.264 and 3gpp are related to MPEG-4. If you look even deeper behind the formats, you'll find Quicktime/Apple roots behind them. 3gp - the file format behind 3gpp - is also the standard of choice behind all GSM mobile phones. So it's also no surprise that a week after YouTube releases their Flash-free, 3gp version of their site, Apple announces that the iPhone will play YouTube videos in H.264. YouTube Mobile is not only relevant to mobiles or the iPhones of the world. Remember Foleo, from Palm? Guess what? All Foleo's will be able to view YouTube videos now. Nokia's N800/770? Those too will get some YouTube love now - as soon as Nokia fixes their 3gp implementation. Bottom line is that with YouTube's adoption of MPEG-4 via H.264 and 3gp, they've set their videos "free" for everyone to watch. Byebye Flash, Byebye Flash.Lite! Hello open standards.
Take a look at this video of YouTube playing on an iPhone.
Good words.
Posted by: Gainell | October 28, 2008 at 11:55 AM