Synacor is a company that you’ve likely never heard of. But you’ve likely heard of their clients. Verizon, Charter, Toshiba just to name three rely on their products to deliver content and services to their consumers across multiple devices anytime, anywhere. Today, the company announced that they acquired Carbyn which gives Synacor a fully integrated HTML5 platform. Here’s what Ron Frankel, Synacor CEO had to say about this:
“Through our acquisition of Carbyn, Synacor is extending our platform to more devices and more screens than ever before. Now our customers can build apps once, yet have their consumers enjoy them across all connected devices,” said Ron Frankel, Synacor CEO. “Synacor is addressing our customer needs as their subscribers continue to use more connected devices in increasingly mobile ways and expect content to be accessible anywhere. In addition to laptop and desktop computers, we anticipate customer start pages, which offer email, news and TV Everywhere content, will appear on an even wider variety of connected devices. The Carbyn acquisition is a tremendous opportunity for Synacor, our customers, and their consumers.”
Why is this a big deal? Face it, the future is HTML5. It the best way to get content to be accessible on multiple devices without having to reinvent the wheel for each device. Anything that leverages HTML5 so that content providers can get their content to the world faster is a good thing. Thus this acquisition is a very good thing.
Elements and benefits of the platform include:
- A branded cloud app platform that is device and OS agnostic;
- Distribution opportunity for the burgeoning HTML5 developer community;
- Reduced costs of developing, deploying, and managing apps;
- New revenue opportunities from content publishing, apps, in-app transactions, storage and premium services;
- Enhanced monetization opportunities through paid search and advertising;
- The ability to continually update and launch new content and apps over-the-air (OTA) seamlessly to consumers; and
- Access to TV Everywhere content and services.
I’d keep an eye on this company as this acquisition is going to be something that will show up in your universe soon enough and change how you view the world.
Google Converting Flash Based Ads To HTML5
Posted in Commentary with tags Adobe, Flash, Google, HTML5 on February 25, 2015 by itnerdAnother sign that Adobe Flash is doomed comes in the form of the news that Google is now converting Flash based ads into HTML5 so that they can be seen on any device:
Back in September, Google began offering interactive HTML5 backups when Flash wasn’t supported. The Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tools for the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Campaign Manager created an HTML5 version of Flash ads, showing an actual ad rather than a static image backup.
Now, Google will automatically convert eligible Flash campaigns, both existing and new, to HTML5. All the advertiser has to do is upload their ads through AdWords, AdWords Editor, or many third-party tools that work with Google’s ad platform.
Now it should be noted that at present, not every ad can be converted from Flash to HTML5, but Google is heading in that direction. The end game being that Flash based ads will be a thing of the past.
It’s a safe bet that the late Steve Jobs is very happy about this.
Leave a comment »