Software and internet standards are always evolving.  The latest buzz to hit the internet is the new HTML version 5 coding standard.  While this coding standard may not mean much to most of you, it does introduce some cool new features.  One of the features is a native video tag.  This new video tag will allow web browsers to play videos without the need for third party plugins like Adobe's Flash player.  

A principle many computer experts embrace is that simpler is often better.  Reducing the number of software applications needed on your computer has several benefits:

• Less packages need updating to address bugs and security problems.
• Getting different pieces of software to interoperate can be difficult.
• Running too many applications at once can bog down your computer.

The popular YouTube and Vimeo video services have introduced technology demonstrations of this new HTML5 video tag.  Right now, only new versions of Google's Chrome for Windows and Apple's Safari browser for Macintosh support the new technology.  In time, Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer
will follow.

Since this is only the start of HTML5 video, it is too early to delete your Adobe Flash plugin...and perhaps you never will delete it because flash can do things beyond playing video.  At Xpleo Media, we follow technology trends to help clients choose the best tool for the job.

Here are some links with more information:

Vimeo announcement: http://vimeo.com/blog:268
YouTube announcement: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/01/introducing-youtube-html5-supported.html

Google Chrome web browser (recommended!) http://www.google.com/chrome
Apple Safari web browser http://www.apple.com/safari