I've been doing some reading for the Macro/Micro Analysis - feels weird to be going to books for this stuff but I wanted the really Macro view on the various applications, rather than the specs (think strategy v tactics) and books seem to cover this better for some reason.
Anyhow, I'd been wondering about Alistair's use of "em" and "strong" as opposed to "i" and "b" and Holzschlag (2004) has a really good little summary on why "em" and "strong" are preferable.
In essence, it's all about accessibility. Web readers for sight impaired internet users can read and respond to the "em" and "strong" tags by modulating to emphasise the words in question, they apparently don't respond the same way to the "i" and "b" tags - these tags are only about the look, rather than the semantics, of the site content.
Reference
Holzschlag, M.E. (2004) 250 HTML and Web Design Secrets Wiley Publishing Inc, Indianapolis, IN, pg 130.
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Thanks for clearing this up. From my very limited HTML knowledge I had seen both instances and am definitely keen to know best practice for producing most accessible websites.
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