HTML5 my ads
Jordi Boggiano • June 2, 2010
web javascriptFirst came Flash. Then came advertisers that thought it'd be great to abuse it. Then came Flashblocktm and friends. The geeks don't like Flash, it's evil.
Now the iPhone & iPad don't have Flash, but they're the shit. Advertisers want a part of the shit of course, and they can put shiny ads in native apps, but not in the open apps that are websites. Thank god there is HTML5, geeks love it, it's all great. So you've got solutions like SmokeScreen developing. It's Flash without Flash, everyone should be happy right?
Have you looked at their demos? Ads. Yes. I'm not saying they won't do more one day, but for now the target market seems to be advertisers, so that they can put out Flash-like ads in HTML5, reach the iDevices and to kill two birds with one stone, they'll reach the geeks that run Flashblock. And all that while interpreting Flash content so it'll most likely be more of a resource hog than Flash is.
What's the solution? CanvasBlock? Noscript? In the end people will find ways to abuse anything.
Of course Apple could come back to the table and implement Flash in the next iPhone OS, instead of having us suck up some half-working slow Flash ersatz on top of completely broken sites.