Why it’s important

Developers and designers are really keen to make use of new features in HTML5/CSS3 (inc. newer versions of javascript).

The issues

The standards are currently evolving and the web is growing more and more interactive. Current implementations of various features are haphazard, at best. Some areas of the specs are still very formative or unclear about edge cases, and as a result, it’s starting to get difficult to properly support putative “standards” across browsers (especially when you get into advanced javascript APIs).

It’s like IE6 all over again, except everyone is doing it. Look at the <audio> tag for an example of things going horribly wrong!

The innovators

Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple’s Safari are the big innovators. There’s a lot happening, but little cohesion around particular implementations. On the plus side, browsers are now updating much more frequently (often automatically) so it’s unlikely we’ll see a complete IE6 repeat.

Further reading

http://gizmodo.com/5461711/giz-explains-why-html5-isnt-going-to-save-the-internet