Last week Facebook unveiled its new HTML5 Resource Center. With this new resource, Facebook hopes to encourage developers to utilize HTML5 features in building the future of the web by accelerating the advancement of innovation and improving the user’s web app experience. Why promote HTML5 technologies? Facebook’s Matt Kelly explained in Facebook’s HTML5 Blog the many benefits of using HTML5 features including:

  • Ease of cross-platform and cross-device development
  • Easy access to coding tools
  • The wide spread availability of browsers on devices
  • How a single codebase that can run on many kinds of devices
  • Greater access to users of mobile devices

The HTML5 Resource Center is divided into three sections. Building Web Apps contains

  • Showcase – Exemplary examples of rich apps, demos and games built using HTML5
  • Web Apps – The architecture and available frameworks for building server-side web apps.
  • Games – Specific insight in the development of 2D and 3D games with an emphasis on performance issues
  • Features – A how to guide for utilizing HTML5 features such as audio and video, new form fields and validation, geolocation, offline support and optimizing for mobile devices.

The Testing Web Apps section discusses specific testing issues for mobile and desktop applications and available frameworks that can be employed for testing.

The Distribution section lists various distribution channels for making web apps available to the public including

  • Desktop social channels which can reach more than 800 million users
  • Mobile bookmarks
  • Web stores
  • Search engines

And now Facebook has extended its social app discovery to include mobile apps which reaches 350 million mobile Facebook users.

In addition the HTML5 Resource Center, Facebook has added an HTML5 Blog and also an HTML5 Developer Group.

These additions by Facebook will certainly boost the adoption of HTML5 technologies and provide companies another avenue to promote and distribute their mobile as well as desktop apps.

For more information, see:

HTML5 Resource Center
HTML5 Developer Group
HTML5 Blog
Bringing Social App Discovery to Mobile