Adobe and the video web

It seems the video web is getting stronger. As far as I can tell the Adobe view is to concentrate on this and assume the text web will look after itself, including the existing cashflow.

The Adobe website has been redesigned recently and the home page is mostly a show through Flash. Below is a still screenshot.



Reduced size images of video streams move across the page. The oldstyle menus for other pages really are that low on the area of vision. Convergance of TV and web means the TV has gone. I think that is the idea.

Through the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive I found an old fashioned Adobe homepage made up of text and flat graphics. Most of the time this is easier for most content. Just my opinion of office life. Still, it will soon be time to log off and watch television. (Broadband still not really up to it in the UK)



Recently I was sent a copy of 'Inside Learning Technologies', ahead of the event in January. Steve Allison writes that "it's surprising, but what often passed for e-learning was a web page of text and graphics, or even a PDF of 'the manual'. This led inevitably to some very boring content..." This knocking copy on PDF is in itself surprising as Steve Allison is Senior e-Learning Solutions Engineer for Adobe Systems. They really are trying to move us all on to Flash. My take is that PDF would have a much better reputation as interactive if it were not so amazingly expensive to put the full range of capability on each desktop. The lucky few who can afford this make up an unknown proportion of Adobe cashflow. LiveCycle has continued as so expensive that it is only even promoted to a small number of rich prospects.

Flash Media Server 3 seems reasonably priced at levels many sites could consider. If PDF really is so out of date maybe the relevant server software is due for a price adjustment.