The Next Web

What is Adobe’s Crystal Ball saying?

Written on May 3, 2008 – 11:24 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France

The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.

If you came here from Digg it would be great if you could actually Digg us too! Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!

It’s difficult for us developers, with tags such as ‘OCD’, ‘aspergers’ and ‘nerds’ to detach the word Macromedia away from Flash. But Flash has been playing Frogger for many years. Formally known as Splash, it has been jumping logs for a long time and with each new release and throughout its management changes, this single star has jumped itself into becoming one of the most dominant and integral players on the Internet today.

With each jump there has been thousands of dedicated and obsessive devotees simultaneously having ejaculations (metaphorically speaking) as the gravity settles to the new possibilities that the latest incarnation makes possible. These would not be apparent to a ‘normal’ person, for only those with the above mentioned tags have the capacity to really grasp the essence of the bifurcation immediately.

Flash has explored every area of the landscape, looking for acceptance, adoption and for an audience that truly appreciates their quests. I say quests because the team behind this baby are ruthlessly exploring new worlds, as and when they find a new feeding ground, they evolve with the terrain leaving little resemblance of their previous incarnation intact. This is one team that is highly interested in natural selection and breeding with aliens!

It is of little surprise that when Adobe Flash announces that they will now explore the mobile market further (code name: Open Screen Project) that when the fruits of this initiative are ripe, we will no doubt have strange new gadgets not even predicted by Philip K Dick, that we will use to navigate the new world around us, with unprecedented access to information and communication, but in an international timezone that has no on/off switch.

So what is it that Adobe’s crystal ball is saying this time about the future. Here are some predictions of scenarios that come to mind when I dare let my imagination go wild with the inevitable consequences of the Open Screen Project.

(more…)

adobe, flash, iphone, macromedia, open screen

No Comments »

Adsense in Adobe Flash now possible

Written on February 20, 2008 – 4:29 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France

Until now it has not been possible for Flash developers to embed Adsense or any other ad-networks ads into a Flash widget. Adobe have made it clear from the beginning that this is something beyond the scope of the technology which has increasingly become a thorn in the side and ‘the most serious limitation’ for Flash developers to realize profit from their applications.

There are now literally hundreds of millions of Flash widgets embedded all over the web, mostly on third party sites, where the widget developers would JUST LOVE to monitise that content with Adsense and other ad networks. So a solution for this Major Dilemma is long over due and the prize for best hackers of the year goes to Scribd who have just launched a new product (IPAPER) that incorporates the said invention. In their own words and from their site come these lovely words:

Monetize Your Documents
If you have documents on your website, you could be missing out on a monetization opportunity. You advertise on your web pages, why not your documents? iPaper integrates a sophisticated ad system by Google that automatically targets ads to the content of your documents. By switching to iPaper, you can immediately begin to monetize your documents. All you have to do is collect the checks.

Click image to see a working example Flash widget with Adsense.

Hacked Solution
Now as they have cracked / hacked a way round one of the greatest limitations of Flash widgets this is going to revolutionize the web! Specifically increasing incentives for the hundreds of thousands of developers who are using Flash to make embeddable features for third party networks such as Facebook et al.

No one has yet come up with any serious solutions for monitising Flash content to date. (more…)

adobe, adsense, flash, google, hackers

5 Comments »