The skill PR pros will need in the future: HTML5

There’s a whole economy emerging around app development, most of which are built specifically for an operating system, mainly iOS for Apple products, Android, and Windows. But a shift away from these “native” apps is inevitable. That shift will increasingly involve the use of HTML5.

Just as we communicators—once skeptical that we need needed to know any kind of code at all—got to know at least the basics of HTML as the Web’s popularity grew, we’ll need to familiarize ourselves with this new standard.

HTML5 opens a lot of possibilities for traditional Web development. For example, it dispenses with the need for plugins to view video. But it’s in the mobile arena where HTML5 will have a real impact.

Developers are embracing responsive Web design as one fundamental way to ensure pages look right regardless of the screen size on which it’s displayed. HTML5—along with CSS3—is at the heart of the concept.

But apps are where HTML5 development will have its greatest impact. Rather than pay for development of each version of an app, you only need to create it once. There’s also no need to push out updates, since any changes you make to the code kick in as soon as a user opens the app.