You know I love Flipboard. So does Time Magazine. So does Apple, which just named Flipboard the iPad app of the year.
The problem with Flipboard is that it’s an app, not the Web, and I keep hoping someone will show me a really well-designed Web app that shows me that the Web can still win.
Yesterday Treesaver’s Filipe Fortes took me up on my “can the Web be saved” challenge and visited my house to show me what he’s been working on for publishers. An open-source JavaScript/HTML5/CSS library of design templates that will help developers at content companies compete with the design aesthetic that Flipboard showed us.
Now, this isn’t a product you can use today. Right now he’s doing consulting for well-heeled publishing companies, but in a month he’ll release this into beta.
For now, though, he gives a good case for why the Web is still important and how good HTML5 is for the future of publishing.
What’s funny is I first met Filipe when he worked at Microsoft. What team did he work on? What now is Silverlight. He admits that the Web has come a long way for providing great cross-platform well-designed experiences.
Must watch and if you are doing stuff to push the Web forward, like Filipe is, please drop me a line! scobleizer@gmail.com
This post originally appeared at Scobelizer and is republished here with permission.
