What Adobe’s discontinuation of mobile Flash Player means for the web

Friday, November 18th, 2011

Last week Adobe announced they will discontinue mobile Flash Player and no longer pursue bringing it to new mobile devices. It was a move most people in the tech and design industries knew had to be made, yet few expected Adobe to actually do it. There was a time, when computers were the only devices being used to browse the web, that Flash was the most valuable and effective tool for building rich, interactive websites. But in today’s world of low-power touchscreen smartphones and tablets, Flash simply doesn’t fit in.

Many of the reasons Flash is past its prime were eloquently described by the late Steve Jobs in his open letter, “Thoughts on Flash.” In the end, Adobe conceded that Flash isn’t appropriate for mobile. Instead, the company will focus on helping developers make native apps and HTML5-powered websites.

This is good news all around, especially for those who advocate using open standards on the web. HTML5 is governed by a standards committee made up of many of the biggest players in technology. Their shared goal is to help advance HTML5 for everyone’s benefit. Flash Player and the tools needed to create Flash content, on the other hand, are controlled solely by Adobe. Their goal is to sell more software and services.

Also, viewing HTML5 websites doesn’t require installing any plugins. In contrast, users must install Flash Player themselves and carry the burden of keeping it up-to-date to protect their device from the latest security threats. There are significant performance and power consumption issues to consider as well.

Adobe took a big step abandoning Flash Player for mobile devices. It’s a huge change in direction for their business model and, more importantly, the future of the web itself. While Flash Player is still being developed for PCs and Macs (for now), the message is clear: Don’t use Flash if you want a wide audience to see your website’s content.

No Comments | Tags: internet trends, web design
Posted by Anthony in Web Technology

State of the Web

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

Before we can even start talking about what’s happening with the web right now, we need to cover a couple of things. First, Apple was right. We are not being biased or anything, but when the now recently resigned CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, suggested we are entering the Post-PC era at D8 in June 2010, he was right. The Internet now is getting accessed by millions of devices that are not PCs. Smartphones, feature phones, tablets, watches, TVs, video game consoles and much more. And the platitude of reasons to access the web is even greater.

The second thing we have to mention, is that one fundamental truth of the web hasn’t changed at all since it was conceived: Content is King. The web is fundamentally a content delivery system. It doesn’t matter if you are reading a web page on a marketing site, checking out your friends status on Facebook or even streaming a movie from Netflix. The main star of the web is and has always been content.

So, why mention these 2 points and how does this help explain the web today?

We are gonna need a bigger boat arm!

The web is a great delivery system.  And now more than ever we have a multitude of devices and channels from which you can deliver your content to your consumers – expanding even more the reach of your message and your company’s online arms. That’s the first challenge of the web in 2011: The different sizes and different capabilities of all these web accessible devices.

Dealing with so many new devices has created a new set of problems and the response to them is called “media queries“. You might have heard about flexible, responsive or adaptive designs. But no matter what technique you apply or what you call it, the beauty of this is you can design your site to fit the screen, and progressively enhance it to make sure it works with all the newest features that all the different browsers allow.

We, at Album, for instance are taking full advantage of media queries on a new site we are designing that has specific features available only for the iPad (This strategy pays off since we know our client’s franchisees will all have iPads, and we can target that specific audience and make their experience even better because of that).

The other thing that is just growing and making its way across the web is content strategy. Because if “Content is King”, content strategy is what can make or break a website. You need both a content strategy and a good understanding of the devices that are available today to be able to deliver your content to the largest audience possible.

And talking about reaching even more people, one of the key things that defines the web right now is the number of new channels available for you to deliver your content. Besides your website, your blog, your Facebook page (which more and more companies favor over their webpages) and Twitter accounts, there is now Google+ accounts (soon to open to businesses), Foursquare, Instagram, and many more. The size of these social channels is so massive right now, that most old media channels, like TV channels and newspapers, have incorporated some use of them. Making them an indispensable part of any content delivery strategy.

That’s it. The web right now is accessed from all sorts of devices, with different sizes, software, and resolutions, and it has more popular platforms and sites than ever. Where do we go from here? In our opinion the Post-PC era Internet will continue to move from your desktop to your pocket, and mobile devices will pretty soon overtake your living room and replace the way you watch consume TV (if it hasn’t done that already).

No Comments | Tags: internet trends, internet usage, media
Posted by Michel in Web Technology

State of the Internet

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

When creating an Internet marketing campaign, you need to know who is online, where they are going, what sites they visit most frequently, what attracts them to certain pages, what types of ads are they clicking on, how do they gather information, etc.

There are various sources of information that helps divide the demographic information and usage habits to better understand what is happening. However, there aren’t many things that are more understandable and fun (for the lack of a better word) than infographics and videos. Below you can see some useful ones that I located for you Album Admirers. Enjoy!

No Comments | Tags: demographic info, Internet marketing, internet trends, internet usage, site visits
Posted by Paulina in Market Research

‘Augmented (Hyper)Reality’ by Keiichi

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Keiichi has an interesting look at what the future may look like. Advertisement’s on every panel. Instant recipes accessed with a virtual keyboard. Virtual displays for all your products, and content levels on each. Event alerts for mediocre activities like your water is done boiling and your running low on milk. You can connect to millions of people by simply changing your view. Pretty amazing all the detail for what looks to be a low budget animation filmed in his kitchen.

Mike Judge has a different take on the future, what do you think?

Found via Kitsune Noir.

No Comments | Tags: internet trends, internet usage, retail
Posted by Nick in Web Technology

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