22 April 2012
Facebook Says “Yo Google and Apple, HTML5 Apps Will Suck Until Your Mobile Browsers Improve”
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Facebook has revealed that its HTML5 site has twice as many users as its iOS and Android apps combined. But that’s actually a problem, because Apple and Google’s mobile browsers don’t support photo uploads or high-performance animation for HTML5 — features that are crucial to getting Facebook mobile site users sharing more and convincing app developers to port to HTML5 where Facebook can tax payments http://melanyor.multiply.com/journal/item/13/Perfect_Colors_for_Wiggles_Party_Decorations.
To encourage mobile browser advancement, Facebook formed the W3C community group, but Apple and Google, the two partners it needs most, have refused to join. Since these oft-rivals to the social network own the dominant mobile browsers Safari and Chrome, Facebook’s efforts may have little impact, HTML5 apps and games will stay inferior, and both Facebook and the end user will miss out.
The audience for great HTML5 apps could be huge. When Facebook stopped reporting the user counts of its iOS and Android apps to AppData, Android had 95 million MAU, iPhone had 105 million MAU, and iPad had 20 million MAU. Given their trajectory they could now have well over 235 million combined monthly active users, and so could its HTML5 site. As of a few months ago, Facebook was driving 120 million visits a month to HTML5 apps. This all means Facebook has a big financial incentive to push the advancement of mobile browser standards.
Facebook doesn’t view its HTML5 app support as a traditional mobile app platform like iOS or Android. Rather it thinks of itself as a social layer that’s integrated into iOS, Android, and HTML5, but that happens to support payments for mobile web apps. The core of Facebook’s business is advertising, but it still makes healthy revenues from the 30% Credits tax on its web game canvas. As more and more gaming shifts to mobile, though, it would help if HTML5 was good enough to support advanced apps that Facebook could then offer viral distribution for and monetize in return.
To fill us in on how it’s trying to jumpstart mobile browser progress, Facebook recently brought several journalists to its headquarters to meet Jam
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