Rich Media

Nov 19 2008   3:52AM GMT

When Apple’s iPhone Becomes Rich: The Road to Flash or Silverlight on iPhone

Posted by: William Peterson
iPhone, Mobile, IT professional, RIA, Rich Media, Technology, Silverlight, Flash, Review, Business

Yesterday I read Brian Chen’s “Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone“, and found that the “Flash on iPhone” topic is really everyone’s talking-about in the town. And most users would be disappointed with clause 3.3.2 of the iPhone SDK agreement.

“An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise … No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).”

I guess everyone is thinking, it’s not a jeopardous thing to allow Flash on iPhone platform, and Apple might be too arrogant. However, we have to wait Apple’s agreement - it would be in 9 months I think. Besides, we don’t refuse any tricks, such as the belgian interactive designer Thomas Joos made his tricks to port Flash Lite to the iPhone (http://vilebody.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/porting-flash-lite-to-the-iphone-btween/),

Other Riches: Can Microsoft Silverlight Catch It At First?

Jobs says Flash just doesn’t cut the mustard and won’t show up on the iPhone. Does that mean we can expect Silverlight running on the iPhone first? The 2.0 version of Silverlight features enhanced video support, and initial mobile support for Nokia S60 or Windows Mobile (http://silverlight.net/learn/mobile.aspx). According to Scott Guthrie, VP of Microsoft’s .Net developer division, the company has been working on Silverlight for the iPhone. But, like with Flash, Apple is reluctant to allow third-party Web plug-ins on its handset. If I’m Microsoft, I’ll try my best to persuade Apple, to capture the leading role in the mobile rich market.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Nov 9 2008   12:15PM GMT

Live, Not Survive: Microsoft Will Take Online Office on the Best Road

Posted by: William Peterson
RIA, Rich Media, Office, Web 2.0, Technology, PowerPoint, Google Docs, Silverlight, Microsoft, Review, Business, PowerPoint 2007, Google Apps, Online Apps, Office 14, Office Live, Google Presentation

According to Anita Hamilton’s “Late to the Game: Microsoft Office Online” on TIME, the rivalry of paperless office technologies like word processor, spreadsheets or presentations, etc. has been not the old style ”Microsoft Office or IBM Lotus” for more and more companies. Giving Google Docs or Zoho a try is the recent popular choice for us.

Although Microsoft Office is still the dominant in the area of business applications for office, it can’t ignore what’s going in the current markets. It has been quite a few months after I introduced Microsoft’s project “Office Live Workspace Beta” (refer to Live Workshop Rivalry: Build Your Presentation Mind On the Road), and I cited that we really need better Web capabilities on the coming office suite (refer to On The Road: Microsoft Office Has To Bet Its Future On The Web). But why Microsoft decide not catch up the way until 2010?

Microsoft Wants to Make the Best Web Office

I have to thank for all the efforts on those gorgeous ribbons and SmartArts in Office 2007, which really help me a lot on presentations. However, online compatibility is the biggest weakness in the Internet times. The coming Office 14 would be really late for the online office market, but I guess Microsoft won’t make that launch another miss. Heard from Workspace Team Blog, the Sliverlight technology has been added into the new Office Live Workspace. Based on the great rich media technologies from Microsoft Silverlight, maybe the expected Office 14 could move all rich features in Office 2007 to the Web. Isn’t that the best idea to conquer the online land for Microsoft? We’re waiting.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Nov 2 2008   10:14AM GMT

Over Microsoft Silverlight 2, Adobe Flash Player 10 Goes Upper

Posted by: William Peterson
Rich Media, Technology, Adobe, Silverlight, Microsoft, Flash, Flash Player

Just a few days later the clickjacking issue of Flash Player 9, Adobe quietly attracts the mass with that fresh flagship product Flash Player 10, with new 3-D technologies, and better rich media engine inside. So what Microsoft Silverlight should do on this?

Frankly, I appreciate the great development of Microsoft Silverlight, which already has the most right technologies for Web applications. Here the problem is, why should we give up Flash technologies for Silverlight? I talked about kinda this topic for many times, and i thought that the turning point for Silverlight could be an another advantage for more Web developers. If our developers get that real value, it’s no doubt for the coming boom.

By the way, Adobe Flex is another good example, I think.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Oct 1 2008   10:29AM GMT

Adobe Flash on iPhone/iPod Touch, Another Advancement for Mobile Business

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, iPhone, Apple, Mobile, RIA, Rich Media, Web 2.0, Technology, Learning, Adobe, Flash, Review, Business, Corporate, Online Apps, Flash Video, Solutions, iPod Touch

Since Adobe Flash Lite in Windows Mobile platform smartphone is greatly common, and a lot of people benefit from mobile Flash applications with interactive rich media such as Mobile Learning, why the popular Apple iPhone still can’t support kinda Flash plugin for Safari or standalone Flash container for the hottest Flash streaming such as YouTube?

Yesterday Adobe at Flash on the Beach 08 Conference (FOTB) said the company is actively developing a port of its Flash animation plugin for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but Apple’s mobile operation system is a “closed platform” and so is out of Adobe’s control. Adobe indicated that it will not use Flash Lite but a better approach to faster iPhone processor and graphics chip.

Apple definitely will approve the great deal I think. And finally we get what we expect of familiar Flash-based interactive applications on mobile devices as exact two-win. I promise, the enhancement of Flash will extended iPhone as the mobile business center. Certainly Adobe Flash for iPhone/iPod Touch will optimize the experiences on Web.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Sep 14 2008   11:26AM GMT

Look upon the Never Rivalry: Pushing Silverlight to Flash Presentation

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, YouTube, IT professional, RIA, Rich Media, Enterprise, Web 2.0, Technology, Learning, Adobe, Silverlight, Microsoft, Flash, Review, Business, community, Corporate, Online Apps, Flash Video, Webcam, Web Presentation, Business presentations

The NBC’s Olympic Games in Silverlight boomed Microsoft’s rich media technologies a lot, but it still stands outside the stage where Adobe Flash dances. Microsoft is not the god, neither is Adobe. Actually Silverlight did well in many specifications as newly developed kit for the Web, while Flash seemed old and out of some emerging developments. To fight the mainstream, let’s look around what Silverlight.

In the developer Niraj Swaminarayan’s Silverligh vs. Flash - An Analysis Report, we can see that some parts are not that crucial for most Web developers. So I take my hands to the opinion that, the so-called rivalry is really not that important like lots of observers said. YouTube can be a Silverlight based video sharing community as well as Flash offers.

I’m concerning about the impact on my favorite Webcasting industry where the Silverlight platform could not step in currently. If Silverlight lives better and better as expected, what’s the critical issues we’ll face when replacing with Silverlight? The IT infrastractures for a business do not require the value of emerging technologies. That’s why Windows Vista could not become the mainstream with its 2 years’ experiences. Certainly it’s not a bad idea to take Silverlight presentation in the future.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Sep 9 2008   7:06AM GMT

Build Web Presentations with Presenter’s Video

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, IT professional, Rich Media, PowerPoint, Flash, Review, Business, Webcam, Solutions, Web Presentation, Business presentations

Are you suffering the high cost and continual repetition of live presentations?
“As a president, I always join many meetings and trade shows to present our products or corporation. There is no problem with the live presentation. But I’m stuck when I want to sharing the meeting with others after it. Because I need present the same presentation again and again even spend additional high costs on driving or flying. The boring continual repetition makes me crazy. Is there any way to take my live presentation to the web? – Mr. Cooper”

PowerPoint is still the most popular tool for presentations now. It could integrate images, movies, narrations, animations to make the presentation animated and interactive. But the PowerPoint file is big and hard to share on the web, hard to integrate with the presenter’s video and narration to live up the presentation.

How to distribute the live presentations to web to reduce the cost?
As everybody knows that, web presentation is a big cost and time saving solution. If we could run the presentation with the presenter’s video and narration online, it will be perfect. The difficulty of the web presentation is hard to integrate the presenter’s video and narration along with the PowerPoint presentation content. Is there any way to fix this problem?

A brand new service gives you an easy-to-use way to integrate the presenter’s video with PowerPoint slideshows, sharing the results online. This simple tool makes it a piece of cake to run the presenter’s video content side-by-side with PowerPoint presentations. So the audience could get the presentation running alongside with presenter’s video and narration in action, likes that the presenter stands by them. This really has the power to bring online presentations to life.

There are many tools such as Wondershare PPT2Flash Professional and services like Omnisio, Zentation to integrate the video along with the PowerPoint slideshows. Here is the comparability of the two ways.

PPT2Flash Professional converts the PowerPoint presentations to Flash with presenter’s video and narration in one click. It works as a PowerPoint add-in. Presenter could easily distribute the Flash presentations to their website or training center for sharing. The Flash format is safer and smaller for web distribution.

Omnisio and Zentation are simple online applications for the synchronization and sharing of the Slideshare-hosted PowerPoint decks and Google Video-hosted content. You could upload your video to Youtube and then upload the PowerPoint presentation to Slideshare, use Omnisio and Zentation to synchronization them together. They will generate one webpage for you. You could share the content with others on this webpage.

In a nutshell, for inner continual presentations, PPT2Flash Professional seems a better solution; for external one time presentation, Omnisio and Zentation are better solutions.

 

 

By William Peterson, Partnered with Sabrina F.

Sep 6 2008   7:43AM GMT

The Mashup Show in Social Web Presentations 2.0

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, IT professional, RIA, Rich Media, Web 2.0, Technology, PowerPoint, Learning, Review, Business, community, Online Apps, Webcam, Web Presentation, Slidecast, SlideShare, Business presentations

Yep, you can see that I’m really hooked by that kinda video presentation services in the Social Web 2.0 times. Hot star Ominisio married Google, and old Zentation continued his beta as semi-pro. They don’t just bet on the mashup of video and slides, as they really want to engage a stage of our social Web. More than sharing all on Web apps, the mashup culture is one big point in Web 2.0 community life. So as to my personal interests in presentations, I can’t ignore the dying of PowerPoint and the power of Web 2.0. The module of Ominisio shock’d me on the development of presentations. Now the traditional presentation gradually become a part of the lifetime show, not only among slides and words.

Above all, I admit that the video content enrich’d the plain slides as expantory, but some skills are necessary as the catchwords “Content is King”. To show the best presentation, we need exceptional ideas, and some practice knowledge about Instructional Design. That’s the real mashup in the better Social Web Presentation 2.0. We learn from others in social community, so the winner presentations from SlideShare’s recent The World’s Best Presentation Contest could be good examples.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Aug 27 2008   1:23PM GMT

YouTube’d Everything, That’s Our Web 2.0 World, Right?

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, YouTube, IT professional, Rich Media, Web 2.0, Technology, PowerPoint, Flash, Review, Online Apps, Webcam, Web Presentation, Slidecast, SlideShare, Scribd, Business presentations

We know, YouTube has been an icon of Web 2.0 community for long time, and making everything YouTube is what we’re doing currently. Actually, we cannot put anything but video clips on YouTube. But we can visit his brothers and sisters. SlideShare and Scribd are the well-known ones among them.

SlideShare - YouTube of Presentations
It’s the most mature community to share our PowerPoint slides from one-time use to slidecasts. As I ever criticized Web presentations, SlideShare community is really popular upon its well-done construction and promotion. Currently it is the standard de facto and the icon as Web presentation in our Web 2.0 world.

Scribd - YouTube of Documents
I introduced it before when it was just launched: Meet Scribd’s iPaper: Flash-based Viewer Platform Built for All Web Documents - PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and More . Certainly we cannot refuse such a great offer to store and share your various documents, from text and image files to PDF and Microsoft Office 2007 files. That’s almost everything in our Web 2.0 world.

We shouldn’t ignore the other parts of Web 2.0, such as social bookmarks; however, YouTube has led us start Web 2.0 in a rich format, which is the everything in our Web world.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Aug 13 2008   12:50PM GMT

Stick to Omnisio: Imagining the Next Generation YouTube Presentation Service

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, Google, IT professional, Rich Media, Technology, Google Docs, Business, Flash Video, Solutions, Web Presentation, Business presentations

There’s nothing exciting for presenters after the events that YouTube video embedded in Google Presentation service (refer to my previous post YouTube Video in Google Presentation, As Expected ). Perhaps we can imagine the future from the collaboration of YouTube and Omnisio. The better interactive features (such as Video Annotations) will enahce the experience and free the creation. But how about the next generation service we can do presentations in YouTube like what we know in Omnisio?

We believe that Google will not ignore the best part in Omnisio to add the presentation slides with online video synchronized (refer to my previous post Perfect Presentation Online - Your SlideShare PowerPoint Slides with YouTube Video Narration Together on Omnisio ). So the empowerment of collaborative online video could that better video presentation collaboration experience for users. Maybe the presentation service by next generation YouTube will be integrated with Google Presentation, and boost the multimedia enhancement of next generation Webcasting.

William Peterson
Presentation Verteran

Jul 14 2008   4:31AM GMT

Rich Media Presentation: An Convenient Truth for the Business Environments

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, IT professional, RIA, Rich Media, Enterprise, Technology, Learning, Review, Business, Solutions, Business presentations

I never conducted any experiments to compare the effectiveness and cost savings of integrating rich media presentations into the business of any organizations, but I dare to assure that it’s all evolution of traditional presentations. Because of the introducing of rich media technology in current business presentations, the communication of business environment becomes really better ever.

Whatever the administrative level or marketing frontline at any businesses, those presentations with rich media enhanced lead to the reduction of energy and paper consumption on more business trips. I can not count the exact issues that rich media presentations help on businesses, however, at least you can make good expressions with enrichments.

Just think about, adding related video clips, narrations, and other interactive elements to your prepared business presentation; aren’t those all of what you want to present? Regardless of your explanation as the key usages on any presentations, content is the king. Let content speck louder than words! I drafted this rule in the evolution of future business presentations.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran