Support for the, oh so nerdily named H.264 video format (MP4 for those needing to explain it to a client), is a huge step forward for online video viewing. Why? The ubiquity of the Flash Player, ninety-eight percent of internet users have the player installed on their computers already. For producers this new feature will save hours upon hours of wasted time encoding, or in You Tube's case, transcoding video to a different format than its source.
So far Adobe has released the technical spec. Don't expect anything in full release or with support until the fall.
This could be the next evolution of podcasting on scale with the iTunes podcast directory. Now all we need is Microsoft to join the party.