A very short polyfill for IE placeholders. It's not meant to be perfect, but it is tiny and takes care of the most important use case for placeholders: to give additional info about how to fill it out. Requires jquery.

1-ie-placeholder-polyfill.js

/** POLYFILL FOR IE PLACEHOLDER **/
$(document).ready(function(){
    if(!('placeholder' in document.createElement('input'))){
        $('input[placeholder]').each(function(){
            if(this.value == ''){
                var $el = $(this);
                $el.bind('click', function(ev){ $(ev.target).unbind('click'); ev.target.value = ''; });
                $el.val($el.attr('placeholder'));
            }
        });
    }
});

2-example.html

<!-- Use placeholders as you normally would -->
<input type="text" name="example" placeholder="This is just an example">