Google is pushing HTML5 hard, not surprising since the greater impact that web pages and apps have, the more advertising it can sell.
Its search homepage is traditionally sparse but many of the doodles, including the Jules Verne-inspired interactive submarine, are now being designed to take advantage of the newest code.
Jeff Harris, product manager for Google Docs, says HTML5 will change the way its services operate from the ground up.
"A simple example would be taking an attachment from your desktop and dragging it into the compose window in Gmail. That's a basic capability that you couldn't do five years ago because web browsers didn't support it."
HTML5 also represents another step to the "semantic web", a web structure championed by Tim Berners-Lee that cross-references, reacts to and displays multiple information sources from the internet in real time.
HTML5 is partly responsible for the browser wars in the past few years.
A decade ago Chrome, Firefox and Safari didn't exist, and browser updates for Internet Explorer were only occasional.
Today desktop and mobile browsers update frequently as new HTML5 functions get incorporated.
Companies favour HTML5 because it can also replicate experiences previously only available inside an app, on the web. This is especially true for the mobile environment.
And a lot of brand names don't like being part of someone else's ecosystem because they lose control of pricing and subscribers. The Financial Times recently announced it will shut off its iPad app completely following the success of its HTML5 web page.
This is a trend that is likely to snowball within months.