I have just volunteered to help host the monthly Flash User Group meetings here in Seattle! I've helped out with a few before, but I'll be doing it regularly now. They are a great group of people with some great designs and ideas. If you're in the area and want to see what it's all about, feel free to join! We meet at the Adobe office in Fremont and our next meeting is next Tuesday! Details below...

What:

Seattle Flash User Group Meeting

When:

Every 4th Tuesday of each month, from 6pm - 9pm

Next meeting is Tuesday, November 25th, 2008, 6pm - 9pm

Where:

Adobe Seattle Office - Fairhaven (room)

801 North 34th Street

Seattle WA, 98103

If you're looking for more information, or are interested in joining the group, see their website (www.seattleflashusergroup.com), or contact the user group manager, Keith Johnson.

Hope to see you out there

Charles

I read this article recently about Apple's new iPhone and the response it received when it was revealed to a crowd in Japan. "…barely a ripple" was the description, and a fitting one too. Reading about how much more advanced mobile technology is in Japan compared to here in North America makes me think about what I can expect (or hope) to happen in the coming years…a mobile boom in North America?

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-japanphone11jan11,0,6424968.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Contrary to what my introductory paragraph might lead you to believe, this post is NOT about the iPhone. The iPhone is simply what brought me to this conclusion…that given the recent trends of Flash Player penetration coupled with the rising popularity of Flash Lite in mobile devices, I am expecting to see some sort of mobile boom happening in the near future. We are already seeing this as people are starting to download music more on their phones, keep up-to-date with e-mails, send pictures, IM, and even watch TV. Starting with Adobe's partnering with Verizon to support Flash Lite on their mobile devices, other companies have followed suit, such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson. The trend is set and I think it's on a good path.

Charles

^*Update: I've come to find out that the article on www.latimes.com has been "archived" and you have to pay to get the full text of the article (wtf?). Well, the Internet has come through yet again in the quest for open-information…I've found the article (the text at least) on www.mobileburn.com. And juuuust in case, I cached it here too.

For those avid diggers (myself included), there’s a new way to digg for new stories. Use this new Flash-based Digg mod, which presents all new stories in the "technology" section using a 3D Flash interface…neat! Michael Battle created this application by tying the Flash front-end to the Digg RSS feed, thereby feeding the stories as they come. Great work!

^*he's been dugg here, vote if you like it!

Charles

I came across this excellent post today about the "openness" of Flash. It is by Duane Nickull*, rockstar and SOA-guru at Adobe, and he talks about how people still perceive Flash to be a proprietary technology. It is definitely a great read for anyone using Flash. I won't re-iterate anything from the post because he says it so well. Read for yourself and post some comments on his blog!

http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-truly-open-is-flash-do-we-need-open_03.html

*fyi, he races Porches...how cool is that?

Charles

This is a quick glance at the worldwide usage of Flash Player across all versions. A look at the graph below will tell you that the Adobe Flash Player is used on an approximate 96% of all Internet-connected computers!¹ This is a staggering statistic. A closer look at the graph will show that the Flash Player has a significantly higher presence than Windows Media Player, a difference in the area of hundreds of thousands of users. And considering that Windows Media Player is bundled with every version of Microsoft Windows, then that’s quite a feat.

Comparison
In addition to the Windows Media Player comparison that I mentioned above, I would also like to compare it to PHP and AJAX. As with the previous post, I am choosing these because they are some of the most popular Internet technologies today. Again, I will mention that the measure for PHP is based on all computers deploying and/or hosting websites, while the comparison with Flash Player is measured against all computers connected to the Internet. The AJAX results are taken from a study conducted by eWeek.com's Evans Data².

PHP has an estimated worldwide use of 37% as of early 2006, roughly one year ago³.

AJAX, after well over 2 years of popularity, is being used by as much as 25% of developers (of those surveyed in Brazil) to as little as 18% of developers (of those surveyed in North America)⁴ as of August 2006.

Flash Player 9 has already matched those numbers after only 6 months with an estimated worldwide adoption rate of 35%⁵ and across all version, a worldwide adoption rate of 96%.

¹http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/
²http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2009845,00.asp
³http://www.phparch.com/issuedata/articles/article_226.pdf
⁴http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2009845,00.asp
⁵http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html

Here is a simple look at the duration it takes for previous Flash Player versions to spread¹…

• Flash Player 5 - over 5 years to reach 96% or higher adoption
• Flash Player 6 - over 3 years to reach 93% or higher adoption
• Flash Player 7 - just over 2 years to reach 85% or higher adoption
• Flash Player 8 - just over 2 years to reach 86% or higher adoption
• Flash Player 9 - in roughly 6 months since release (released in June 2006, currently January 2007), has worldwide penetration of 35%

Comparison
This comparison will match Flash Player to PHP. Although this may seem like an apples to oranges comparison (client-side technology vs. server-side technology), I chose this because PHP is one of most popular web technologies currently used today. I should make it clear that the measure for PHP is based on all computers deploying and/or hosting websites, while the comparison with Flash Player is measured against all computers connected to the Internet.

PHP 5, the latest release since PHP 4, has found usage on roughly 1.82% (4.89% of 37.19%) of websites after 2 years of reaching a stable version².

Flash Player 9, the latest release since Flash Player 8, has worldwide penetration of 35% after only roughly 6 months of release.

¹http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html and http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=511F7
²http://www.phparch.com/issuedata/articles/article_226.pdf

Adobe Flash Player, self-proclaimed as "the world’s most pervasive software platform" certainly can hold that title. The results that I've given not only show the Flash Player to be ever-prevalent, but also (and more importantly) ever-growing. With each successive release taking less and less time to reach 85%+ adoption worldwide is amazing and I don’t think that any other software platform can even compare.

A lot of this is attributed to the ease of upgrading from previous versions…extremely quick downloads, easy install (typically two clicks), and no restart. After upgrading, it’s hard to even realize that you've changed release versions!

We're at Flash Player *9* now, not in Flash Player Beta. Each successive release adds a LOT of value to the player, whether it’s a more rigid and secure sandbox model in Flash Player 7, or the drastic increase in performance in Flash Player 9.

A lot can be said for the viability of the Flash Player and I am extremely excited to see how Flex, Flash-Lite and Apollo burst onto the scene in the next short while.

Charles

Since starting at Adobe, I’ve been exposed to a lot of the new and exciting technologies that they are releasing…Flash 9, Flex 2 and Apollo! What do they all have in common? They all are based off of the Flash Player 9 run-time. So, just as an experiment out of curiosity to see what kind of base these future technologies will have in the coming years, I decided to research and crunch some numbers. After only a few minutes, I was quite pleasantly surprised. The next few posts will be dedicated to my results. I am trying my best to keep all (except for the conclusion and possibly the comparison sections) unbiased and simply matter-of-fact posts. See for yourself…

• Flash Player Adoption Rates (part 1) - Adoption Trends
• Flash Player Adoption Rates (part 2) - Worldwide Use
• Flash Player Adoption Rates (part 3) - Conclusion

Charles

Adobe has just announced that Flash Player 9 for Linux is now available in the Download Center. Nothing much else to say about that…Linux users rejoice!

Keep up to date with more Flash Player announcements by following Emmy Huang, product manager for Flash Player at Adobe.

Charles

The holidays are upon us and it’s about time for a Christmas post. A team at Adobe has just created, and made public, a Flash Holiday Card Creator. No instructions, in fact, no words at all. Very intuitive site to creates some nice e-cards to send out to friends and family. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Charles