New Chrome experiment: Embed your message in a music video and have the band dance it out
We here at 9to5Google love Chrome Experiments, nifty little web apps that showcase what can be achieved with HTML5 and the Chrome browser. Be it a simple project like the Google I/O countdown timer …
Context & Ripple Effects
This experiment lands mid-campaign in the HTML5-versus-plugins fight: since Apple began pushing HTML5 against Adobe's Flash runtime in 2010, Google has used native HTML5 video support in Chrome as a competitive weapon, and Chrome Experiments has been its showcase arm for proving the open web can do what plugins do.
The format matters as much as the tech — after Mozilla Labs' Chromeless project showed browsers themselves becoming programmable surfaces, Google is now demonstrating HTML5 video not as a passive playback format but as something malleable enough to choreograph around user-submitted text.
First-order effects
- Users get a shareable artifact — a personalized music video with their message danced out by the band — making this a viral distribution loop where each shared clip advertises Chrome and HTML5 for free.
- The band gains a promotional vehicle whose production cost is code rather than a second music video shoot.
Second-order effects
- Agencies and labels watching the experiment's spread face pressure to treat interactive HTML5 video as a marketing channel, shifting briefs away from Flash-built microsites toward standards-based builds.
- Adobe's Flash runtime, already losing ground as sites adopt HTML5 interfaces through 2010–2011, loses another high-visibility category — branded entertainment — to a rival demoed on Google's own browser.
Third-order effects
- If playful, technically ambitious experiments keep landing, the browser consolidates its position as the default creative platform for campaigns and media experiences, with security researchers' warnings about HTML5's expanded attack surface becoming a live concern as more of this logic ships client-side.
The trend: Google is marketing the HTML5 transition through viral Chrome Experiments, converting each stunt into evidence that the open web can replace plugin-dependent rich media.