A couple of news items that signal trends in the way the web will evolve:

Internet Explorer has lost a significant amount of market share recently. This is good news in a couple of ways.  First, it signals growing diversity among web browsers, and the people who use them.   This strengthens the concept of web standards, and encourages design that is browser agnostic.  The other way in which this is good news is that IE6 use has dropped below 10% and IE7 is heading that way as well.  Internet Explorer 8 is superior to either one, and it is great to see people upgrading.   There are also many fantastic browsers not made by Microsoft, including Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, and Opera.  Whichever you choose (and why limit yourself to just one?), make sure you are using the most current version.  Otherwise the only thing you aren’t missing out on is the security problems.

XHTML 2 will disappear at the end of this year.  That I think this is good might surprise those who know that I have been designing using versions of the XHTML standard since around 2005.  I like the separation of content from design, and some of the features of XHTML 2 look fantastic.  However, I think HTML 5 is going to take the internet by storm, and it is better to incorporate as many of the good features of XHTML 2 in HTML 5, eliminate the problematic issues, and let one standard guide the design of general web pages.  This requires that HTML 5 be as good as it looks.  I have high hopes for it.

This has been a busy week; so much so that the previous post, HTML 5, Google Wave, and the Future of the Web was started last weekend, with some editing and additions each day, and them actually posted yesterday.  Note that it says “posted”.  I realized last night that I hadn’t actually finished it.  So, if you read it and wondered what the heck did HTML 5 have to do with the rest of the post, here is my wrap up:

You may be wondering why I started this post discussing HTML 5.  The newest version of HTML has been in development for years, and has had its share of controversy.  Many developers and users have spent years pushing for effective use of web standards, with an eye towards XHTML use and support, which emphasizes the separation of content and style.

HTML 5, according to some, muddies the content/style waters too much, and will make it harder to preserve the gains that continue to be made.

However, with the timely announcement of Google Wave, it seems clear that HTML 5 is a game changer with serious potential, and that it will make many things easily possible that currently require a great deal of work and computing power.

For the next few years, at least, we will be working with web pages that, at best, will be coded to two fairly different standards.  XHTML and HTML 5 will co-exist, and if web developers approach their task with an understanding of each, we can design sites around the standard that suits them best.

Perhaps the next iteration of HTML will be a unification of the standards, allowing everything to exist within one framework.  I don’t know if that is possible (and don’t know HTML 5 enough to have a grasp of the differences between them), but I for one will be very happy to have two powerful and well-created standards to work with, and look forward to seeing what lies in the future.