schematic

Many years ago, a very well known, and respected MD of an ad agency back in my old hometown of Perth, said to me when I told him what I did for a living “Multimedia? Isn’t that where i’m reading a newspaper and watching TV at the same time” - This humorous response highlighted to me (even back then) that traditional advertising agencies just don’t get the digital media space.

Fast forward to today, and it appears as though I wasn’t the only person who picked up on this disconnect. Interactive agencies such as Big Spaceship, Schematic, BLITZ and many more, have been extremely successful in working with traditional agencies in the conversion of their offline campaigns into the online space. Not wanting to seem left behind, even traditional agencies are now getting on the trolley and creating dedicated, digital sub-divisions to focus on this market.

The emergence of these interactive agencies wasn’t just a matter of coincidence - these companies understood that whilst most advertising agencies had a firm understanding of print, tv and radio mediums, they struggled tremendously when trying to come to grips with digital. Those who have worked in digital for any degree of time know that it’s not a simple, cut-and-dried medium. So much so, that even within interactive, we’re starting to see the same issues faced by traditional applications development firms, such as the divide between the creative ‘front-end’ and the technical ‘back-end’. As such, we’re staring to see the emergence of specialsied partnerships such as those between BLITZ and gSkinner.com. These types of partnerships effectively offer clients the best of breed in ‘front-to-back’ solutions for their branded applications.

Despite the global explosion of interactive agencies over the last five years, and the numerous documented successes of branded applications, Brian Morrissey of Ad Week is of the opinion that branded applications are “The Newest Brand Graveyard“. In his article, Morrissey appears to somewhat ignorantly base the success of ALL branded applications under the domain of how well they perform within social media environments such as Facebook. Despite appearing to be a technical writer for Ad Week, Morrissey’s lack of expertise in this area clearly demonstrates that he’s actually one of these traditional old skool advertisers who thinks they know the digital space.

The reality is, that branded applications have been around way before Facebook was even conceived. In 1996, Goodby, Silverstien & Partners hired Red Sky Interactive to develop what could be considered the world’s first branded application - a web banner based version of the old skool classic Pong for Hewlitt Packard (HP). The internet was a mere infant at this point, and it was Red Sky’s Chief Creative Officer Joel Hladecek who took the plunge in developing the game using a revolutionary new (web based) technology - Macromind (now Adobe) Director (a pre-cursor to Shockwave). In doing so, he essentially started the branded application wave that so many organisations are (successfully) riding today.

Whilst I won’t deny that there have been a stack of branded application failures, I would hazard a guess that the bulk of these came from traditional agencies with little-to-no understanding of interactive.

So in an effort to bring an element of constructiveness to my criticisms, i’ve outlined a few pointers for those thinking of playing in this space;

• Branded Applications are not an Afterthought - Good application development is a complex process, and not something that’s hastily hacked together as an afterthought for a campaign. Ensure the planning (for the development) of the application is considered from day 1 of your campaign planning.
• Leave it to the Experts - Don’t pretend you know how to play in a space that you don’t. Just as filming a TVC requires the specialised skill-sets of lighting operators, make-up artists, camera-operators and directors, so too does application development. Good application development will at a minimum require a user-experience (UX) expert, graphic designer, a front-end developer, a back-end developer, account manager, and a project manager.
• Give Value - If you’re going to go to the trouble of developing a branded application, make sure you add some value for the end-user. After all, they are your target audience, and they’ve taken the time to download and interact with your application. Practical, useful desktop widgets - leveraging a technology like Adobe AIR are a great example of how to offer long-term brand awareness (thats displayed everytime the user interacts with it) combined with long-term usefulness. Furthermore, using the update-feature of AIR you can extend the life of your application, by quickly and easily updating it on the end-users’ machine once a new campaign is launched.
• Keep it in Context - Where possible, branded applications work best when aligned to another campaign. Random, stand-alone branded applications have less chance of success if they’re not partnered with another form of media (e.g. online, print, or radio). Additionally, don’t market the application to a target audience outside of its primary context - e.g. don’t promote a car servicing application, within a home-cooking recipe forum.
• Right Time, Right Place - Following closely on context’s heals, is application download placement. Be sure to place the download promo/link in an easy to find location (within your page/site). There’s no point in hiding the download link on a page/section that’s tucked away on an unrelated page/section at the back of your site. Be sure to maintain the call to action right up the front within the context of the main campaign promo.
• Track, Track, Track! - It’s imperative to both agencies and their customers that tracking be factored into branded applications. Track downloads, track unique clicks, track connections, track updates, track usage time, track mouse location. Regardless of whether you envisage using these metrics, be sure to track and record them. They will be gold.

Dan Goldman from Adobe’s Advanced Technology Labs has showcased a sneak peak of some of the interactive video manipulation research he’s been working on with fellow Adobian David Sales and their University of Washington colleagues Brian Curless and Steven M. Seitz.

The research focuses on the streamlining of the user interface, and workflow, associated with manipulating video. Delving into features such as;

• Video object tagging and annotation
• Video object motion point/path tracking
• Video navigation via object manipulation
• Still image capture/composition via video object manipulation

Adding validation to this train of research, Dans work is very similar to that of Pierre Dragicevic and Gonzalo Ramos who have been have also been working on their own research project with their DimP - Direct Manipulation Video Player.

If you’re keen to check out some of these features in action, then be sure to check out the video below;

Whilst we’re years off seeing API’s available that leverage some of the functionality outlined in the research. I think it’s the application of said research, within rich media based applications, where things start to get really interesting. All of this has definitely got my creative juices flowing and I see a HUGE potential for applications using this technology, such as;

• Games
• Social networking applications
• Collaborative video sharing applications
• Rich media advertising mash-ups
• Interactive sports applications
• Video object based metadata tagging
• Object motion tracking for security and ambient media based applications

If you’re keen to dig deeper on some of the magic going on behind the scenes, then be sure to have a read of the Video object annotation, navigation, and composition paper that Dan and the team released at the proceedings of the 21st annual ACM symposuim on User Interface Software and Technology.

Shout-out to JD for the heads up on this piece.

The battle for Olympic gold in the global video streaming event is well and truly under way. With Microsoft having a head start in partnering (*ahem paying*) with NBC to deliver 2,200 hours of live, interactive video, plus integrated broadcast coverage. Their NBCOlympics site will have massive spikes of traffic based on the hotly contended events, as well as peak viewing periods.

With the eyes of the world closely scrutinising their offering. It goes without saying, that what ever is produced needs to be designed for performance and deliver a brilliant user experience. This being the case, NBC and Microsoft have teamed up with UX glitterati Schematic to design the Silveright based NBCOlympics Player application. The application will offer users the ability to switch between multiple live streams (i.e. cameras), and multiple events simultaneously, as well as offer enhanced picture-in-picture, and interactive features for all users watching at any given time.

Whilst it has been widely reported that NBC will be forcing users to download Microsoft’s Silverlight player in order to see live and on-demand video. This is not necessarily the case. Of course Microsoft would prefer users to download Silverlight in order to get the best user experience, but users who don’t have the plug-in, or choose not to use it, will still be able to get stand alone video streams if they have the Windows Media player. Having said that, given that the market penetration of Silverlight is still pretty low, Microsoft are obviously hoping that the Olympics will be the face to launch a million downloads. In theory, this isn’t such a bad plan, so long as the technology actually delivers on the promises from from an end UX perspective (which unfortunately it didn’t in my small focus group).

Despite having Silverlight installed on our Macs, when we attempted to view/test any streaming content via the NBCOlympics Player our browser(s) continually crashed. Additionally, if you’re not running Windows Media Centre, or are on a Mac, you won’t be able to access NBC’s online Olympic video centre (NBC Olympics On The Go) either. According to TVTonics’ site if you don’t have the following system requirements (below) you can forget about any streaming (or on-demand) video.

System Requirements

• operating system — Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit currently not supported)
• Windows Media Center required — included with Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate
• processor — 1GHz 32-bit processor minimum
• memory — 1GB mininum RAM (2GB recommended)
• disk space — minimum of .5GB per subscribed channel + 1GB add’l
• video — 1024×768 minimum resolution; support for DirectX 9 graphics, minimum 128MB VRAM, WDDM Driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, 32 bits per pixel

*Update* according to comments left over at TechCrunch - Comcast, Cox and others users whose ISPs throttle their downloads, or users on Timewarner and others who have metered bandwidth charges won’t be able to tune in either.

All-in-all, the fact that NBC, and Microsoft have seen fit to restrict the availability of a global sporting event in this manner is pretty disappointing from an end user perspective. Personal annoyances/disappointment aside, as an advocate of rich internet applications, and the genuine benefits they bring end users, I wish NBC/Microsoft every success with this endeavor - and honestly hope we don’t see a repeat of the Microsoft/Mosiac strike out earlier this year with the US Major League Baseball site.

The bottom line is that if users are required to make the effort to download/install a new run-time (regardless of flavour) to support the viewing of rich/digital media - anything less than a stellar end-user experience will do way more damage to the overall benefits of RIAs (as a whole) regardless of which platform they’re built on.

Sarah Perez over at ReadWriteWeb has just given a heads up that Atlantic Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, has just launched an new AIR app called Fanbase. This app has to be one of the best examples of AIR i’ve seen to date.

Rather than just taking the easy route and simply re-inventing the MP3 player in an AIR based format, Fanbase combines music, video, chat, and images. Fans can even customise the app by choosing which artists they want it to display from the dropdown menu or the “Manage” screen. Whilst we’re talking about artists, Atlantic Records has some huge ones with their roster including big names like Death Cab for Cutie, James Blunt, Buckcherry, Gnarls Barkley, Jet (great Aussie band), Panic At The Disco, Paramore, Rush, Staind, Rob Thomas, Simple Plan, Missy Elliot, and a stack more.

Atlantic Records collaborated with imeem, the music social networking site that lets users upload, create, and listen to music. Through the integrated imeem music player, Fanbase will automatically capture the latest music from any particular artist and stream it directly into the player. Fanbase’s video content comes from YouTube and Brightcove and the chat feature is provided by Meebo.

“We’re always looking to elevate the experience and interaction our fans have with our artists,” said Eric Snowden Creative Director of Digital Media for Atlantic Records. “Through Fanbase we’re delivering that experience digitally, on-demand and in a manner that allows fans to create a much deeper connection with their favorite artists.”

To demo Fanbase, you can download it from here.

If you’ve been thinking about learning Flex but have found it either too hard, too expensive, or just too time consuming, have we got a treat for you.

Flex in a Week is a free video tutorial series that allows you to learn Flex at your own pace. It comes with a set of exercises that takes you through the foundations of Flex and onto some of the intermediate concepts. Definitely enough to get you started!

If you run into problems and have questions, you can ask a question on the Flex in a Week forum.

Whilst you’re in a learning mood you might also want to check out one of the other great, free tutorial videos we have on all the other Adobe products over at the Adobe Video Workshop.

Kudos to Matt Chotin and the Flex Team, Ted Patrick and the Community Management team, as well as Jeremy Allaire and the Brightcove posse, for making this all happen

It was bound to happen, and dare I say this is only the thin edge of the wedge, with AIR being used for less than pure purposes

I happened upon this latest use of Adobe’s AIR technology over at Andrew Shorton’s blog where fellow devo *ahem* Adobian, Eagled Eyed Shorts was on the case “researching great examples of our AIR technology in use when he stumbled across this latest example.

Keeley Hazell is a Sun (UK Newspaper) Page 3 model, a role that usually involves her appearing topless, or tastefuly kitted out in lingerie, splashed across page 3 of The Sun. Always keen to create a better, longer lasting ‘user experience’ The Sun (which allegedly has the highest circulation of any English-language newspaper in the world) approached digital agency glitterati Glue London to create Desktop Keeley.

Desktop Keeley is a slick, well designed AIR based RSS reader with a little extra twist. When you get bored of reading the latest news you can select the “Come out to play” option from the menu to kick off a chroma-keyed video of Keeley (resplendent in lingerie or bikini) striding out onto your desktop. Alternatively, you can have her appear at a specified time interval to give you a private show. *NOTE TO UNSUSPECTING PLAYERS* be sure to turn this app off before you head into boardroom, or conference presentations - unless you want an embarrassing (but pleasant) surprise!

If you’re keen to have a Desktop Keeley all for yourself, jump on over to The Suns page and download it (warning: semi nudity). Or if you’re like Andrew and I and more keen in the ‘research’ side of things you could watch the sneak peek behind-the-scenes at Desktop Keeley shoot. Where you can see all the technical, green screen chroma-key action being recorded/edited (it’s all very eduacational……I promise)

Apparently if you tap the ‘t’ key 5 times, then the number 5, 4 times, then write ‘keeley’, and hold down the space bar - nothing happens - which is a shame

Odd sounding name, even stranger sounding definitions (especially when you check out the Wikipedia or German versions). Doof is a nice looking Adobe Flex based (”freemium”) social networking, casual gaming site.

After some initial sign-up problems, I found Doof to offer a range of stock-standard games - ranging from arcade and action, to cards and puzzles etc. With the typical gaming-fare of leagues, tournaments and competitions to keep the more competitive gamer entertained. Certain parts of the site, (i.e. the elite games or specific virtual goods), are locked down and require an ongoing (pay based) subscription.

You’ll also find a lot of the typical social networking site (i.e. Facebook and MySpace) offerings here, such as the ability to create profiles, friend lists, and update your status (as well as customised news feeds).

According to Social Networking Watch, Doof is privately-owned by the London based Money Gaming Corporation Ltd, which is headed up by CEO Liad Shababo. Shababo started his online gaming site career as an affiliate for online gaming companies in 2002, eventually starting up MoneyGaming.com in 2005. MoneyGaming.com allowed people to play games of skill against each other for real money.

Shababo’s plans for Doof include creasing the user base, enhancing the site functionality, predominantly around the interactive community features, whilst at the same time, growing the games, competitive options, player customisation features and integration options with existing social networking sites and platforms.

If you didn’t get a chance to make it across to Adobe MAX in Chicago this year, Adobe Australia are holding a “Refresh” event for the local developer communities. This is your chance to hear first hand the about latest news and announcements made during the keynotes of Adobe’s largest single developer event!

Over the last few posts i’ve looked at UX and SOA, SOC & Web 2.0 as motivators behind the recent adoption/popularity of rich Internet applications.

Another key motivator driving the adoption and development of Rich Internet Applications is Brand. To understand why brand would actually play a part in any RIA development process we need to step back a few years.

Back in October 25, 1994 HotWired (the online sibling of Wired Magazine) was the first web site to sell online advertising space in large quantities to a wide range of major corporate advertisers. They were also the first company to provide click through analytic reports to its customers. This (sales) initiative was the brain child of Rick Boyce, a former media buyer with San Francisco advertising agency Hal Riney & Parnters.

In late 1996 Hewlett Packard partnered with San Francisco-based online agency, Red Sky Interactive, to produce what is now regarded as the worlds first interactive rich media banner ad (dare I say Advergame). The ad was developed by Red Sky programmer Chris Hurwitz (using Macromind Director) and allowed users to play the classic videogame Pong within a banner ad. Looking back, it seems quite poignant that the world’s first rich media ad was based on the world’s first video game, Pong.

So what’s all of this got to do with RIA motivators I hear you asking? Well actually a quite a lot. Ask yourself - which came first - the brand or the application? The answer (in most cases) is the brand. Sure there are a few brands that have evolved from an application (Microsoft for example) but, for the most part, a large proportion of all RIA’s are an extension of an organisation’s existing brand. As such, RIA’s are often referred to in advertising circles as ‘Branded Applications” (or Branded Utilities).

The guys over at Teknision are leaders in the branded application space, and are one of the few digital agencies on the planet who actually get the power of RIAs. A belief that Teknision have (that I whole heartedly share) is that “traditional campaigns focus on entertainment to deliver a message, while branded applications provide a valuable service in order to deliver an emotional connection with a brand.”

Unlike existing Flash based corporate web/micro-sites, branded applications offer organisations the opportunity to excel where other traditional (brand or web based) experiences fall short. Applications like Nike+ harness the power of the web, the idea of a (social network based) community, a smattering of innovative Apple hardware, all wrapped up within an intuitive application to produce an unmatched user experience that is engaging, useful, interactive and most importantly begs to be revisited time and time again.

Amongst all the other benefits that RIAs provide, branded applications add enhanced customer loyalty to the mix. By providing a tangible, longer lasting service to their customer, brands that choose this path dramatically set themselves apart from those that are still intent on interrupting the consumer wherever they are.

The introduction of new technologies like AIR and Silverlight will continue to speed up the proliferation of branded applications (AMP is a classic example of this). As such, companies need to spend some serious time looking at how they communicate, not only their offerings, but also themselves to end users. Old skool (branding) mentality is a thing of the past. Customers (aka clients) are becoming more discerning when evaluating brands (oraganisations and their offerings). They are are demanding longer lasting, more tangible benefits such as those provided by branded applications. Anything falling short will be seen as little more than noise.

I’m just about to hit the hay and thought i’d post some of the (now public) announcements which will no doubt be hitting the blogesphere tomorrow (or today) - depending where you are in the world.

For those interested i’ll be writing more detailed, and complete outlines of the following posts tomorrow (once i’ve woken up).

Adobe Acquires Virtual Ubiquity (Buzzword) - This is HUGE news as Virtual Ubiquity are the creators of ground-breaking online word processor RIA, Buzzword. Built entirely in Adobe Flex, Buzzword can run either in an online mode (via any Flash Player 9 enabled browser), or offline (from the desktop) as a stand-alone AIR application.

Adobe announces Share - Adobe announces new free online document sharing service, codenamed “Share”. Looking very much like an online version of Flash Paper, Share allows users to select, upload, and preview documents they wish to share with friends, colleagues, etc. Recipients are in-turn sent a message to view the document, and set whether the files will be publicly accessible or restricted. Built using Adobe Flex, the rich UI provides a smooth experience, integrating simple workflows to upload and share documents with high quality online previews to speed up finding the right document. Jump in and take Share for a test-drive here on Adobe Labs.

More than just hot AIR - Adobe has announced a swag of major organisations who have embraced the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and will be demo’ing applications at MAX this week. The companies include: Anthropologie, AOL, Business Objects, eBay, The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc., Nickelodeon’s Nick.com, PayPal, Philips Lighting, QVC, salesforce.com, SAP, and Yahoo!.

Adobe Media Player (AMP) - Whilst on the theme of major organisations adopting Adobe technologies. Major television broadcasters and leading content publishers including CBS, PBS, Yahoo! Video, Meredith Corporation, Blip.tv, Fora.tv, Motionbox, MyToons and StimTV are collaborating with Adobe to distribute video content via the new Adobe Media Player (AMP). AMP is a lightweight desktop AIR based application that offers viewers the ability to subscribe, and watch content online or download and view videos offline, all with full-screen hi-def playback. To download and try the demo version of AMP drop by Adobe Labs.

FlashLite 3.0 Announced - This is major news for developers looking to bring video to mobile devices. This latest upgrade to the FlashLite Player provides improved performance along with ability to embed or stream Flash video content to mobile devices.

Andrew Muller sours US/Australian relations by refusing to tip our taxi driver - In all fairness we can probably write this one off as a combination of jet-lag and naiveness. Luckily the cab driver in question had another fare jump in, just as we fled to the sanctuary of our hotel - so wasn’t able to pursue Mr Muller for his $2 tip.