Blogging for change

This time last year, more than 13,000 bloggers from 152 countries participated in Blog Action Day, in a collective posting on global warming.

This year, the focus has shifted to water. Or more specifically, access to clean, safe drinking water - something that almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to. That's one in eight of us.
 
Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence. Children are especially vulnerable, as their bodies aren't strong enough to fight diarrhea, dysentery and other illnesses. The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation.

So, even if you regurgitate these simple, compelling facts from the Blog Action Day Website or from Safe Drinking Water is Essential - like I have - take some time to post. Let's beat last year's number.

Will Apple's rejection of Flash undermine the apps market?

Criticism of Apple’s controlled approach to its mobile operating system and its backing of HTML 5 over Flash has led certain commentators to question the viability of the apps market. 

But drawing a line of conflict between HTML5 and apps is, I think, slightly diverting – and it’s an argument that fails to consider important differences between apps on a mobile phone, and apps on tablet devices – and how those devices connect to the Internet.

Browsing the ‘web’ on a mobile phone remains, largely, a frustrating experience. Apps on mobile phones have done an excellent job in packaging and optimising a web-like experience for devices which are forced to connect to the internet through these still-sluggish cellular connections.

Tablet devices on the other hand – and early research shows that this is how they are being used – are quickly finding their use as a second, or even third device in the home and therefore largely connected to the internet via wi-fi.

It’s a vital distinction – and one which should lead publishers or developers to ask themselves a fundamental question before committing to development: “Will this application deliver a superior experience compared to a rich website application on a device that’s largely connected to the web on wi-fi and has an excellent browser?”

Finally, what this debate rarely considers is the fragmentation of the app market - it’s not just about Apple and iTunes. Delivering a proposition with real scale will mean developing for many different platforms – Apple, Android, Ovi, Bada, etc – and this adds cost and complexity.

So could HTML5, a universal standard which makes app-like functionality available on any browser, undermine Apps in that scenario? Absolutely.