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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.

I’ve been very fortunate to be invited to speak at Adobe’s major conference event of the year MAX at Chicago.

Apart from all the great new products that will be launched, events like this are always fantastic for catching up with colleagues from around the world, and networking with new contacts and partners.

The conference facility (McCormick Place) is MASSIVE. It takes a good 10 minutes to walk from one side to the other.

I’m about to head over to the Welcome reception and O’Reilly Ignite session. Ignite is very similar to the WebJam sessions we have in Australia only on steroids. They have 16 x 5 minute sessions. With each speaker getting only 15 seconds to discuss each slide. It should be a hoot!

I’ll be blogging most of my adventures, and the sessions I attend, so be sure to stay tuned.