The following is an extract from our book, HTML5 CSS3 for the Real World, 2nd Edition, written by Alexis Goldstein, Louis Lazaris, and Estelle Weyl. Copies are sold in stores worldwide, or you can buy it in ebook form here.

Although HTML5 presents significant changes in the way content is marked up, it’s worth noting that those changes won’t cause older browsers to choke, nor result in layout problems or page errors.

What this means is that you could take any old project containing valid HTML4 or XHTML markup, change the doctype to HTML5 (which we’ll cover in Chapter 2), and the page will appear in the browser the same as it did before. The changes and additions in HTML5 have been implemented into the language in such a way as to ensure backwards-compatibility with older browsers—even older versions of Internet Explorer! Of course, this is no guarantee that the new features will work, it simply means they won’t break your pages or cause any visible problems.

Even with regards to the more complex new features (for example, the APIs), developers have come up with various solutions to provide the equivalent experience to non-supporting browsers, all while embracing the exciting new possibilities offered by HTML5 and CSS3. Sometimes this is as simple as providing fallback content, such as a Flash video player to browsers without native video support. At other times, though, it’s been necessary to use scripting to mimic support for new features.

These “gap-filling” techniques are referred to as polyfills. Relying on scripts to emulate native features isn’t always the best approach when building high-performance web apps, but it’s a necessary growing pain as we evolve to include new enhancements and features, such as the ones we’ll be discussing in this book. Fortunately, as of writing, older browsers such as Internet Explorer 6 through 9 that fail to support many of the new features in HTML5 and CSS3, are used by less than 10% of web visitors today. More and more people are using what has been termed evergreen browsers; that is, browsers that automatically update. This means that new features will be functional to a larger audience, and eventually to all, as older browser shares wane.

In this book we may occasionally recommend fallback options or polyfills to plug the gaps in browser incompatibilities; we’ll also try to do our best in warning you of potential drawbacks and pitfalls associated with using these options.

Of course, it’s worth noting that sometimes no fallbacks or polyfills are required at all; for example, when using CSS3 to create rounded corners on boxes in your design, there’s often no harm in users of really old browsers seeing square boxes instead. The functionality of the site has no degradation, and those users will be none the wiser about what they’re missing.

As we progress through the lessons and introduce new subjects, if you plan on using one of these in a project we strongly recommend that you consult a browser-support reference such as the aforementioned Can I use… That way, you’ll know how and whether to provide fallbacks or polyfills. Where necessary, we’ll occasionally discuss ways you can ensure that non-supporting browsers have an acceptable experience, but the good news is that it’s becoming less and less of an issue as time goes on.

The Growing Mobile Market

Another compelling reason to start learning and using HTML5 and CSS3 today is the exploding mobile market. According to one source, in 2009 less than 1% of all web usage was on mobile devices and tablets. By the middle of 2014, that number had risen to more than 35%! That’s an astounding growth rate in a little more than five years. So what does this mean for those learning HTML5 and CSS3?

HTML5, CSS3, and related cutting-edge technologies are very well supported in many mobile web browsers. For example, mobile Safari on iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad, Opera Mobile, Android Browser, and UC Browser all provide strong levels of HTML5 and CSS3 support. New features and technologies supported by some of those browsers include CSS3 animations, CSS flexbox, the Canvas API, Web Storage, SVG, Offline Web Apps, and more.

In fact, some of the new technologies we’ll be introducing in this book have been specifically designed with mobile devices in mind. Technologies such as Offline Web Apps and Web Storage have been designed, in part, because of the growing number of people accessing web pages with mobile devices. Such devices can often have limitations with online data usage, and thus benefit greatly from the ability to access web applications offline.

We’ll be touching on those subjects in Chapter 11, as well as others throughout the course of the book, providing the tools you’ll need to create web pages for a variety of devices and platforms.

On to the Real Stuff

It’s unrealistic to push ahead into new technologies and expect to author pages and apps for only one level of browser. In the real world, and in a world where we desire HTML5 and CSS3 to make further inroads, we need to be prepared to develop pages that work across a varied landscape. That landscape includes modern browsers, any remaining older versions of Internet Explorer, and an exploding market of mobile devices.

Yes, in some ways, supplying a different set of instructions for different user agents resembles the early days of the Web with its messy browser sniffing and code forking. But this time around, the new code is much more future-proof: when older browsers fall out of general use, all you need to do is remove any fallbacks and polyfills, leaving only the code base that’s aimed at modern browsers.

HTML5 and CSS3 are the leading technologies that have ushered in a much more exciting world of web page authoring. Because all modern browsers provide excellent levels of support for a number of HTML5 and CSS3 features, creating powerful and simple-to-maintain future-proof web pages is easier than ever before.

So, enough about the “why,” let’s start digging into the “how”!

North American marketers are increasing their spending on video content marketing, but they appear to be a bit less bullish than last year.

In October, Demand Metric and Vidyard surveyed 289 marketers about their video marketing objectives.

According to the survey, a majority of the respondents said they are upping spending at least somewhat for their video marketing this year. But the levels were down from 2015.

Most of the survey respondents worked for organizations in the B2B sector, where content marketing is a common tactic. According to a November 2016 survey by Bizible, Heinz Marketing, Radius, ReachForce and Uberflip, more than 80% of B2B marketers use content marketing to acquire customers.

Although the use of video content marketing is widespread and growing, marketers still struggle to measure its effectiveness. Nearly half of the respondents of the Demand Metric/Vidyard survey said that ROI is improving but a quarter said they don’t know what the returns are.

One subtle shift uncovered in the Demand Metric/Vidyard survey was that slightly fewer marketers said they were featuring video on their websites this year. The percentage slipped to 78% in 2016 from 81% in 2015. The same pattern could be seen for most other channels.

—Danielle Drolet

Colorado Potatoes ramps up millennial video marketing campaign

by Kathleen Thomas Gaspar | December 20, 2016

Building on the success of its earlier 2016 video that featured a “fast hands” presentation of Colorado Waffle Iron Potatoes, the marketing arm of the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee is releasing video instructions for Potato Noodles, what Assistant Director Linda Weyers and Marketing Administrative Assistant Savannah Schlaufman described as “a new way to eat potatoes.”

Potato Noodles will be featured in a Colorado Potatoes video campaign running on social media for the next three months. Chef Jason Morse from 5280 Culinary in Denver provides a detailed step-by-step version of the recipe. Photo courtesy of Colorado Potatoes.

Though the video has appeal to all ages/demographics, Weyers and Schlaufman said the target of this three-month campaign, which launched in early December, is the expanding buying power of Millennials —individuals born between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s

Produced through a partnership with ABC Channel 7 in Denver, the campaign features a two video format. One is a “fast hands” recipe version for social media, with ABC handling placement. It will be used as a pre-roll ad leading into videos, Schlaufman said, and Internet distribution will focus on Southeastern U.S. markets.

The second video is a longer format and features Chef Jason Morse, owner of 5280 Culinary in Denver. Morse, who has worked with CPAC for a number of years in developing recipes for Colorado potatoes, launched the chef services/culinary accouterments business in 2010.

In his video version of Potato Noodles, Chef Jason demonstrates a spiralizer on potatoes, rendering the spud into a pile of “noodles” quickly. The gluten-free noodle substitute can be used in a variety of dishes and lends itself to virtually every pasta sauce, including Colorado-favored red and green chili and millennial-favored ramen.

“The video will have a general message on how to eat potatoes, with this as a suggestion,” Schlaufman said. “Our aim was to let people use their own creativity, and our idea was to put it out on social media and let people click through to our website, coloradopotato.org.”

She said Scripps is handling distribution of the longer video.

“We’re hoping millennials pick up on it,” Weyers said, noting the production is going into areas where Colorado Potatoes has a strong market share.

“Our first video for Waffle Iron Potatoes was really well-received,” Schlaufman said.

In addition to the three-month video blitz, Colorado Potatoes is also taking part in the Produce For Kids campaign, “We Love RDs,” referring to registered dietitians. The program delivers “toolkits” to in-store RDs and nutritionists, providing items such as produce scrubbers and p.o.s. for specific products. In March and April Colorado Potatoes will be sending gift certificates and activity books for National Nutrition Month, Schlaufman said.

Adobe now has one less follower user of their Flash Player with Microsoft finally now dropping Adobe’s multimedia web plugin. Instead, it is HTML5 that would be filling the void. The Redmond giant has stated the switch-over to HTML5 will be applicable from the next version of its Edge browser that would be tuned to be less dependent on the once ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player. Continue reading this story here.

The IAB Technology Laboratory today released “Transitioning Video Ads from Flash to HTML5/JS,” which it touts as practical guidance for migrating digital video
advertisements to HTML5 and JavaScript.

But the document cautions that “this transition will not be simple as it is ridden with technical as well as operational/logistical
challenges.”

The IAB suggests that users should go slowly. “Considering the complexity of the transition, publishers and agencies should take steps immediately to move
away from Flash and plan the transition over the course of the next six months. The goal is the complete elimination of Flash Video Ads by July 2017.”

The IAB has compiled two
checklists, for publishers and agencies, to make the move smoothly.

It also said that references to Flash in IAB guidelines for ad formats like VAST, VPAID and OpenRTB “should
be considered ‘deprecated’ as of Jan 1. »

In a statement, Alanna Gombert, IAB’s senior vice president, technology and ad operations and general manager of the IAB
Tech Lab, said: “The move from Flash to HTML5 and JavaScript is vital to improving user experience in digital video advertising. We recognize that it’s a complex transition — one
that cannot happen overnight. »

But the technological writing has been on the wall for a long time. Google, for one, quit accepting Flash file uploads from advertisers nearly six
months ago. This year, Google Chrome also has been phasing out Flash altogether.

The IAB’s research says HTML5 has been shown to contribute to a 29.5% brand lift in tests that
the organization conducted.

For online video, HTML5 offers mobile abilities Flash does not — a huge advantage.  

The beginning of the end of the road for
Flash may have started in 2010, when Apple’s Steve Jobs said HTML5 was the future and Flash was “no longer necessary.”

Chinese authorities are clamping down on streaming video over social media amid a proliferation of online-only television content and live-streaming.

The State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television is requiring social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo to obtain licenses to broadcast video or audio, while also demanding that content distributed over social media hold traditional broadcast licenses. The new guideline is the latest effort by the media regulator to consolidate control over an explosion of new digital media content that has operated beyond the confines of China’s traditional media.

In recent years, a vast cottage industry of high- and low-budget filmmakers, TV producers and even live-streaming individuals have made content for web portals, set-top boxes and social media platforms beyond the purview of China’s media censors. The national media regulator took a major step in cracking down on unlicensed programming in 2014, requiring that set-top boxes and streaming websites carry content from only a handful of licensed distributors.

Under the new rules, films and TV series circulated on social media will also fall under the same level of scrutiny and must have the same licenses as for public airing. User-generated political news programs are also forbidden.

The regulations followed new Ministry of Culture rules issued this month requiring live-streaming operators to submit identity papers for their stars and prove that they can censor inappropriate content.

Mobile video consumption has exploded in China, and advertisers in 2016 spent more on digital media than traditional television, according to consultancy eMarketer, raising new challenges for a government that has long been careful about policing online content and discourse.

One of the fastest-growing areas has been live-streaming. Official researchers say that more than 300 million people, or nearly half of China’s internet users, used streaming apps in 2016 to watch people singing, pulling stunts or simply going about their everyday lives — and sometimes more.

This year, several high-profile cases of live-streamed sex have caused uproar, while a Beijing couple became a sensation this month when they streamed themselves hiding overnight in an IKEA store. The most popular streamers on services like YY, Yingke and Yizhibo, the mobile app made by the Internet portal Sina, can make tens of thousands of dollars a year, if not more, by collecting spontaneous online donations.

The Cyberspace Administration of China also warned in November that live videos could destabilize national security and social stability by spreading rumors and fraud. The agency has similarly characterized other popular social media platforms to justify greater internet censorship.

Chinese internet games and social networking giant Tencent, which operates WeChat, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Weibo’s public relations staff could not immediately be reached.