To others, it means everything that’s new and interesting on the Web, including technologies implemented in just a single browser or other specifications not officially part of HTML5. To some, it just means new tags like and and a handful of new attributes available in markup. You might have discovered by now that HTML5 means different things to different people. And if you’re just confused about what HTML5 even means, fear not: that’s our first stop in this series. If you’re skeptical, I want to help you understand just why HTML5 is important. If you’re excited about HTML5, I want to help you turn that excitement into ideas you can put into practice immediately.

Finally, I’ll leave you with some tips that will help you adopt HTML5 technologies now, while you continue to provide great experiences to users with older browsers. I’ll also introduce some HTML5 features that are available today, as well as some exciting technologies that, though a bit further out, are worth paying attention to. I hope to simplify some of the complexity around HTML5 for you, and demystify much of the hype. Over the next several months, I want to help you understand what HTML5 means to you-both as a Web developer and as a developer who uses Microsoft tools and technologies. This is the first article in a series for MSDN Magazine, and the goal is to give you a complete picture of why the first sentence in this article is true-and important. It’s a broad topic, so it’s difficult to wrap your head around HTML5, much less know where to begin with this exciting new set of technologies. I’ve experienced each of those reactions myself while building applications with HTML5. What’s more, its true meaning can be elusive.

HTML5 is exciting, and it does have the potential to change the Web as we know it, but it also gets blown out of proportion. Perhaps your reaction was a mix of all three. I’d guess that when you did, you got excited, rolled your eyes, or mouthed the word “why?” and furrowed your brow a bit. You’ve no doubt heard that before, or something like it. HTML5 is here, and the Web will never be the same. Volume 26 Number 08 HTML5 - Building Apps with HTML5: What You Need to Know

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