On-stage, Adobe just confirmed that they will include VP8/WebM with Flash Player and "push it out to a billion users within a year of its release."

The flash support is absolutely key to this thing being adopted. If I'm a video company, I'd bet the future on VP8 and HTML5 with Flash to support older browsers.

They've been quiet about adding other codecs to the player, but considering Google's recent support for Adobe, I can see how they could easily ask Adobe to add that in support of them. Not to mention that they would need to do it for FP to remain relevant as a rich video player layer.

Ok, they've officially announced support now. No mention of which version of FP though.

Why VP8 instead of h264? VP8 will bring you firefox, which does support flash. h264 brings you i(Phone|Pod|Pad) and other hardware. Am I missing something?

Not having to (eventually) pay royalties for serving H.264 videos could be a factor. This assumes that VP8 successfully stays clear of patent threats.

Well I'd make the bet that Apple will eventually support WebM, namely because of Youtube (because I'm betting Google encodes Youtube videos in VP8).

VP8 has the best chance of becoming the HTML5 video standard since Mozilla flat out refuses h.264, yet Apple and MS have yet to publicly suggest refusal VP8.

The iPad and iPhone won't be the only players in the game. Android is getting more popular, and if Google releases a tablet that plays WebM youtube videos, I don't see why Apple wouldn't try to support it as well.

Flash support is very useful. The other big news is the list of hardware vendors pledging support.