Apple has released all of the 2010 World Wide Developers Conference for free and they are super rich with HTML5 love and tutorials.

Apple WWDC videos rich with HTML5

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From the post,

“Over the last few months, user engagement on Scribd has surged, according to CEO Trip Adler, thanks to its transition to HTML5, the introduction of the iPad, and Scribd’s Facebook integration. Of these three factors, Adler says the conversion from Flash to HTML5 was by far the greatest driver for his document sharing company. According to Scribd’s numbers, time on the site has tripled in the last three months.”

Scribds adoption of HTML5 pays off in a major way

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http://whitherapps.com/bbc-news/

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I just got back from the Geo-Local Smackdown with @Dylan Clendenin and @Alex Levinson.

Riffing on my thoughts from yesterday regarding the industry as an ecosphere and software as organisms this is how I see the situation. Tonight my friends and I saw 6 little fish swimming in a big pond. Sure they can boast adoption rates of 100,000 a week and userbases of a million or two. But these are shrimp and tuna. The silent Great White swimming in the distance is Facebook.

Not Apple or Google–each with a mobile platform but Facebook with it’s nearly half a billion users. Neither Apple or Google have a network that size with so many interlocking parts. Facebook’s social graph is the ecosphere that each of these 6 little fish tonight are hoping to create.

Make no mistake about it—Facebook is going to turn on geo-location. Trust me. And they will do it in a big platform kind of way. They will in effect become the geo-location reef around which all life grows as well as the bad ass shark that guards it all and feeds on the thriving life. (credit to @Robert Scoble for the idea of a software reef)

It’s clear that 2010 is the year that the mobile web really takes hold. Mobile phones are everywhere. I have 6 staring me in the face as I write this and I am considering buying the new iPhone. Think of each of the phones you see in people’s hands as little fish that swim on the reef. Now think of all these new geo-location companies as bigger fish that are fighting for a chance to eat the data your phone produces. And then picture Facebook at the top of the foodchain.

I see an interesting parallel between Facebook’s situation and Apple. Both are creating thriving reeves. Both are also ruthless preditors that are essentially growing their own ecosystems where they can pick and choose what survives and what dies.

The question in both situations is what does a smart developer do? Do you invest time and money trying to become the 7th or 8th little fish? Or do you become an exotic plant that grows on the reef?

FWIW & for better or worse—after tonight I hold true to my prediction that geo-location will be completely ubiquitous within 5 years—Get ready.

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This evening I gave an hour and a half talk on HTML5 <video> to the Santa Cruz web developers club and I used this picture. It sums up the way I feel about what is happening right now.

Each time we have had a paradigm shift—from mainframes to mini computers, from mini’s to personal computers, from pc’s to laptops, and now from laptops to mobile devices we have seen a 10x increase in users. Those 10x users are the massive wave about to engulf the already tipsy and frail boat which is our industry and world.

There is another label I could give this picture. The lower wave could be iOS and the massive wave could be Android. iOS may be more polished and user friendly as well as up in our face like the little wave is currently upon the boat—but Android is a massive wave rising in the background about to crash down upon our boat and turn the whole thing upside down.

I always think of software like organisms and industries like ecosystems. There are big and little organisms. There are preditors and prey. There are parasitic relationships and symbiotic relationships. And around it all is experimentation and darwinian evolution. In natural ecosystems Nature will try everything imaginable. Once life finds a niche it will maximize adaptation to survive and thrive. That is what I am seeing with Android.

When I was at Google IO with @dylan.clendenin we saw over 60 Android “phones.” There was every style of phone you could imagine. Big phones with touch screens and front and back facing cameras. Small flip phones with no camera and no touch screen. Phones with physical keyboards. Phones with virtual keyboards.

@ Leo Laport reported that there were over 45 Android Tablets that launched 2 weeks ago. Tablets that ranged in size from 15 inches down to 7 inches. Tablets with USB ports and tablets with none. Tablets with front facing camera and back facing cameras and both. Tablets of every shape, style, and price point–all runing Android and all plugged into the Googleverse.

This is digital Nature at it’s finest. Because of Android’s wonderful price of FREE we are witnessing the Cambrian explosion of mobile. And this is only the beginning. Now our phones become intelligent. Who better to harvest all of this information and find meaning in it than the Great Google?

Contrast that with iOS. Yes I will admit that it is better today. By better I simply mean that if you were stuck in an elevator on acid with Android or iOS I think you would have a better trip with iOS.

But iOS is like an industrial mega-farm that grows only roundup ready brocolli. The brocolli is growing and living in an entirely artificial and curated reality. It will grow exactly to its potential maximum because it is being grown by professional farmers. There is no chance for nature to evolve in this environment. And outliers will quickly be culled. Steve Jobs and the boys aren’t going to risk you fucking up their Singularity.

But mono culture leaves no room for experimentation and in an explosion like we are about to experience where we go from the age of mobile computing with 2 to 3 computers per user to the age of ubiquitous computing with thousands of computers per user iOS will be too narrow to fully explore all the potential niches in the ecosphere.

Android is the common DNA that the vast majority of the computers of the future will share.

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Scribd

These are slides from a recent talk I gave on HTML5 video at the Santa Cruz web developers club. Big thanks to Mark Pilgrim and Dive into HTML5 for most of the info for this talk.

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After using foursquare for the past few weeks and checking in when I go out as well as seeing where my “friends” currently are—I am left with one over arching theme. The check-in is the new advertisement. And it’s the dream advertisement. Let me explain.

Advertisement as we traditionally know it is on the outs. That’s why we fast forward when the commercials come on TV. It’s too mass market and lowest common denominator. We have come to expect more. Social media has changed that dynamic and that is why facebook is rushing all over itself to monetize the social graph. They know that when my actual friend tells me to check something out I will check it out. When a big brand tells me to check something out through an ad I rarely listen.

That brings me to the check in. First, let me say this is the land-rush time in Geo-location. Within 5 years (let’s admit it, sooner) this will become extremely normal and geo-location will be pervasive. Right now people are only just beginning to experiment and feel comfortable. So companies who stake a claim now will absorb many new users as the market explodes.

Regarding the check in as advertisement. The check in acts to enforce brand loyalty and increase sales in multiple ways.

1. On a purely micro level when a person checks in they are telling the people in their network where they are located and what they are doing. They are sending a signal to their crowd to come and join them. More than likely this will involve spending money at the place the user checked in. Like I mentioned earlier—there may not currently be overwhelming amounts of people on geo-location services but that will change drastically over the next 2 years. It will be extremely common and convenient for us to serendipitously convene with those located around us.

2. On the same note but a bit more macro. When a person checks in they are signaling their crowd that they endorse this place by giving it their time and awareness. Not only do they value it enough to give it their own time and awareness—they are willing to send it downstream to take up the time and awareness of their network. And nothing is more valuable than time and awareness. They are effectively saying “I valued this place enough to spend my time here as well let you know about it. I give this place my personal stamp of approval.” There are actually people competing to be the “mayor” of a business. This means that they are actively and repeatedly going to this place and checking in. This is incredible in terms of branding and marketing. You can’t buy this kind of word of mouth.

3. Finally, on a purely macro level—checking in reveals a pattern about a person’s actions. If you look at my stream you will notice 3 main trends. Home. Work. Food. That’s my life as summed up by my geo-location. Not very interesting? Interesting to a marketer surely.

I challenge you to ask yourself what the geo-aware web means for your next web-app.

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From the post,

“Utilizing CSS 3D transforms, this 360-degree interior view of the Apple Store, Fifth Avenue, takes advantage of hardware acceleration.”

VR

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From the post,

“JavaScript lets you incorporate 360-degree elements on your web page.”

360 degrees

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From the post,

“Add Keynote-style transitions to objects on your web pages by using CSS 2D and 3D transforms like the ones displayed here.”

Transitions

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