When it comes to distributing video on the Web, YouTube reigns supreme, serving up billions of videos each year. Part of the reason for its success is the simplicity of posting and viewing video and a key enabling technology behind that is Adobe’s Flash. But Flash is not without controversy. Ever since Apple declared the media playback software wasn’t good enough for the iPhone and iPad, there’s been a heated debate over its merits and alternatives like the emerging HTML5 standard. As developer.com reports, Google’s YouTube division has issued a detailed explanation as to why it’s primarily sticking with Flash — for now.
Google’s YouTube division voiced strong support for Flash this week in a blog post aimed at Web developers, arguing that the emerging HTML5 standard isn’t yet ready to fully replace Adobe’s Flash platform.
“We’ve been excited about HTML5’s <video> tag for quite a while now, and most YouTube videos can now be played via our HTML5 player,” Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) software engineer John Harding said in a post at the company’s YouTube blog for developers. “This work has shown us that, while HTML5’s <video> tag is a big step forward for open standards, the Adobe Flash Platform will continue to play a critical role in video distribution.”
