Online electronic publisher Scribd began transitioning away from Adobe’s Flash on Thursday in favor of HTML5. The company has already converted about 200,000 documents from Flash into HTML5 in anticipation of today’s rollout, and will continue working on transitioning the millions of documents in its online collection, according to Techcrunch.
“We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash,” said Scribd co-founder and CTO Jared Friedman Now any document can become a Web page.”
The change means any device that supports the HTML5 specification can view Scribd documents. Previously, documents were visibly only on Flash-enabled devices, cutting out all smartphones along with Apple’s new iPad.
Moving to HTML5 also means Scribd users won’t be forced to view documents inside a Flash window. “Right now the document is in a box — a Youtube-type of experience. There is a bunch of content and a bunch of stuff around it,” Mr. Friedman said. “In the new experience we are taking the content out of the box.”
Once converted to HTML5, documents will be able to take advantage of the specification’s font, rotating text and vector graphic features and the formatting control those features offer.
While the announcement is good news for potential Scribd users that want to view documents on devices that don’t support Flash, it’s bad news for Adobe. Regardless of whether or not Scribd thinks Flash is a viable option, throwing its support behind HTML5 looks like yet another no-confidence vote against Adobe’s multimedia platform.
12 Comments Leave Your Own
It looks like this time One Man Can Start a Landslide with the Casting of a Single Apple.
(Apologies to Deacis IX)
Au revoir le ancien regime
I’ve been in Canada long enough to know what that means.
I like the scene in Canadian Bacon where John Candy and his pals where driving a truck that they marked with insults. Patrol officer Dan Aykroyd pulls them over and to comply with the law he made them include the insults in French.
Funny he mentions fonts… With HTML5, the viewing device will need to have the actual fonts installed. Flash will package fonts inside the .swf file so that documents can be displayed as authors intended.
Out with the old, in with the new.
Gone like a Flash, into the trash.
(Sniff) Beautiful poetry, Tiger. Brings a tear to my eye (Sniff).
In CSS3, you can define a font that points to a font file stored on the server. I assume they will license a good set from the foundries ala Typekit
Thanks for the link Stephen, I was wondering where web fonts was going and this might be it.
HTML 5 & web fonts
Another feather in HTML 5’s cap, and another nail in Flash’s coffin (right Bosco?).
I think you meant this nail. Powered by Adobe Air.
There is also http://webfonts.fonts.com/ . I think it is doing something similar to Typekit.
Personally, considering the problems fonts have caused me over the years, I’m not so sure webfont tech is such a great idea. Add to that the possible security or crash risks introduced by serving any old font, as well as just plain overriding a person’s preference in their own browser because your artistic vision is worth more than the information you’re supposed to be delivering… Yeah, not too keen on it, whether it’s HTML5 or Adobe Flash or Adobe Air or Grandma’s Old Stockings delivery..
Yuck. Adobe Air uses a mouse and pointer? How quaint. I guess they still can’t get a decent mobile interface going!!
Add your comment