Category: Web 2.0

Flash Player Coming to Palm Pre and webOS

osp_logo.gifOne of the most exciting announcements that came out of Adobe today is that Palm is joining the Open Screen Project. Robert Scoble has some interesting comments and is following the news as well. What this means is that the Flash Player is coming to Palm’s new webOS platform and the Palm Pre. If you haven’t checked out the Palm Pre and its revolutionary OS, go check out this video on Engadget. The goal is that OEMs will have Flash Player delivered by the end of 2009, which means you will probably start seeing it on phones in 2010.

To me, the Pre represents everything great about the iPhone, and more. While hardware is a huge part of the appeal to any particular platform, it is the whole picture that matters. With Palm, not only is the Pre a great form factor (it has a keyboard!), but webOS builds on all the ‘Web 2.0’ ideals and allows developers who have invested in Ajax and Flash based technologies, take advantage of those skills for creating content and applications for a true open web platform. And last but not least, using Palm Synergy it creates a single view for all of your cloud based information and helps maintain your data independence.

So, while I am a huge fan of the iPhone (I have two for heaven’s sake), I am extremely excited about getting my hands on the Palm Pre and hopefully I can pull a few strings and get a build of the Flash Player running on it before it is generally available! There have to be perks to having this job, right?

How Not to Launch a Startup

UPDATE: Looks like they fixed the page. Now go and try out their service and blog until your heart’s content! It does look like a great service on the surface. I will definitely be trying it out.

This week, TechCrunch’s TechCrunch40 conference is going on here in San Francisco and a number of new startups are launching their services. I started to sign up for one of them: Mint. Mint is an online money management application that looks well designed, simple, and easy to use. As I was signing up though, I noticed a particular checkbox with an agreement that I had never seen before: “I agree not to blog about or post screenshots of Mint.”

I am hoping this is just an overlooked feature that was for private testing before launch. I can’t think of any other reason they would have this. But, now I can’t sign up until they remove it. Neither will any of the other bloggers who may have been their best source of buzz! Hopefully they will fix this soon.

Don’t Underestimate Google Checkout

Definitely one of the big news stories today is Google’s announcement and release of it’s new product called Google Checkout. Many in the blogosphere (as evidence by the comments here) are dismissing its launch to Google’s apparent lack of focus and inability to address it’s core business.

What should not be overlooked is how strategically important this product will be for Google and how this launch illustrates that they are very focused on their core business: advertising. A great majority of the $6 billion in revenue that Google reaped last year can be directly attributed to their advertising programs. Without this revenue, there is no doubt that Google would be a shell of the company it is today and what it will be in the future. So to maintain their market dominance, they have to secure that revenue stream, which has come under increasing pressure as worries about click fraud have start to deteriorate trust in their current CPC system.

So what does a checkout system have to do with any of this? Quite simply, they have to reinvent advertising, again. The end goal in any advertising effort is to get customers to do something. This could be the consumer pulling their wallets out but may be the customer just making a phone call to the advertiser. The problem with most advertising today is that there is no way to really track why and how that action was initiated and if it ended in an actual purchase.

Earlier this week, Google announced a new ad program based around a cost-per-action model. The theory goes that if you can track a transaction from start (when the user sees the ad), to finish (they make a purchase, or other valuable action) then the advertiser will pay more for each action than they would for a click. Advertisers will pay more per action because they are only paying for what they truly see as valuable and not for clicks which may or may not pan out.

But what is missing in this plan? Google has the advertising infrastructure and audience. They also have a pretty good way to contact the advertiser through an ad using Click-to-Call. And now, they actually have a way to track and record the purchase.

If anything, Google Checkout shows that Google is right on track in securing their business. There is no doubt in my mind that they are doing what they have done many times in the past, redefining the rules of the game.

Don't Underestimate Google Checkout

Definitely one of the big news stories today is Google’s announcement and release of it’s new product called Google Checkout. Many in the blogosphere (as evidence by the comments here) are dismissing its launch to Google’s apparent lack of focus and inability to address it’s core business.

What should not be overlooked is how strategically important this product will be for Google and how this launch illustrates that they are very focused on their core business: advertising. A great majority of the $6 billion in revenue that Google reaped last year can be directly attributed to their advertising programs. Without this revenue, there is no doubt that Google would be a shell of the company it is today and what it will be in the future. So to maintain their market dominance, they have to secure that revenue stream, which has come under increasing pressure as worries about click fraud have start to deteriorate trust in their current CPC system.

So what does a checkout system have to do with any of this? Quite simply, they have to reinvent advertising, again. The end goal in any advertising effort is to get customers to do something. This could be the consumer pulling their wallets out but may be the customer just making a phone call to the advertiser. The problem with most advertising today is that there is no way to really track why and how that action was initiated and if it ended in an actual purchase.

Earlier this week, Google announced a new ad program based around a cost-per-action model. The theory goes that if you can track a transaction from start (when the user sees the ad), to finish (they make a purchase, or other valuable action) then the advertiser will pay more for each action than they would for a click. Advertisers will pay more per action because they are only paying for what they truly see as valuable and not for clicks which may or may not pan out.

But what is missing in this plan? Google has the advertising infrastructure and audience. They also have a pretty good way to contact the advertiser through an ad using Click-to-Call. And now, they actually have a way to track and record the purchase.

If anything, Google Checkout shows that Google is right on track in securing their business. There is no doubt in my mind that they are doing what they have done many times in the past, redefining the rules of the game.

Web 2.0 Week

Well, there is a lot of buzz right now on the internet, as it is Web 2.0 week. A few of us from Macromedia will be here (it is right here in our own backyard in San Francisco), including Mike Chambers and Christian Cantrell. I am very excited about this conference, the world is really waking up to what Web 2.0 and the next generation internet really is. Mke Chambers has a very good post on this subject and how the Flash Platform fits into this.

Obviously there will a lot of announcements from different companies. Rumor has it that Yahoo! is introducing a new search product, and 37Signals already announced and released there new Writeboard application. I can’t wait to hear what else is coming, this conference is definitely well represented by all the big players who are participating in defining what the web will be in the near future.

If you are here and see me, feel free to come up and introduce yourself.