Scribd to Convert Millions of Documents into HMTL5 Content

Team Flash or Team HTML5? For Scribd, the world’s largest social reading and publishing company, it is going Team HTML5.

This week the popular site announced its plans to convert its content that is current from the Flash format into HTML5, an announcement which comes less than one year after the conversion of more than a billion pages of content on Scribd.com. All of the content that was previously embedded using the Flash-based reader will convert to HTML5 in the coming weeks.

Moving forward, all the content uploaded to Scribd and embedded on third-party websites will display HTML5, the codeset that is used by most mobile devices including the Android and iPhone (News - Alert).  Scribd documents are accessed on third party websites by more than 10 million readers.

 “The bottom line is that reading is just better in HTML 5,” said Scribd CTO and Co-Founder Jared Friedman in a statement. “The material loads clearer, faster and can be read from any mobile device. We made the transition on our own site last May and engagement has more than doubled. EW wants the same results for our publishers.”

Tens of thousands of Web publishers will update from this benefit including Dropbox, FindLaw, Monster.com, Posterous and SAP (News - Alert). Scribd is also used by many media organizations that frequently include supporting material such as research, legal briefs and illustrations within the stories. These outlets include companies such as Business Insider, CBS News, The Chicago Tribune and USA Today.

Scribd is not new to the HTML5 movement, however, as it pioneered the movement of Web documents into HTML5 in May 2010 “in anticipation of the staggering growth of the smartphone market and readers’ desire for a better way to read from within a mobile browser,” according to company officials.

During ITEXPO Miami, TMC’s Juliana Kenny spoke with Dr. Cullen Jennings (News - Alert), Ph.D., distinguished engineer at Cisco about how the future of mobile including HTML5 and other technologies will become part of the wireless multimedia future.

In just a few months, TMC will hold an HTML5 event in July in New York City in collaboration with Crossfire Media.

“This new technology has the ability to revolutionize user interfaces and make desktop software and native apps less important while supercharging cloud-based services,” TMC CEO Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) said about HTML5 and the upcoming event.