Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has announced the WebM media format at the Google I/O conference. WebM is an open-source and free web standard that competes with the H.264 format. The H.264 video format is partially owned by both Microsoft and Apple.

WebM will be supported on web browsers including Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer. WebM includes VP8 (a royalty-free video codec), Vorbis (an open source audio codec), and a container that is based on a subset of the Matroska media container. A developer preview can be seen at webmproject.org. [WebM Project Blog]