This is a tricky question to put in layman’s terms, as each evolution of the Internet develops there are ever more complex solution’s to allow for more intuitive and a more enjoyable user experience.

Flash has now become a ‘house hold’ name, but in the past, has always been focused around design and designers. We all remember the hideous Flash Intros that we were subjected to not to long ago, luckily we have moved on to more interactive and engaging web sites, its high adoption rate (98%) means it is widely spread amongst the majority of all computers, including Linux as well as the obvious Mac and PC. Truly cross-platform.

Then came the next ‘house hold’ name Web 2.0 (although not quite as well known). This was essentially not a new technology but rather driven by a need for a better experience. The major improvement was pages that acted more like desktop applications, in that the page did not update or refresh every time you clicked a link or entered some data in a form field. I think Google’s ‘Gmail’ were one of the more noticeable pioneers in using this technique.

The technology behind this was termed AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and leveraged extra functionality derived from a much older but very standardised language called JavaScript. This is actually very similar in its structure to Actionscript, which is the language behind Flash. AJAX won favours because it allowed efficient data transfer to servers without page refresh and also allowed a certain amount of ‘cool’ interactivity, creating more movement within a web page without even using Flash.

In the background, Adobe were listening to their users and were working on an overall framework of technologies that allowed the existing community of developers and designers the freedom to utilize their skills and allow them to build not only the usual applications they were used to but also to be empowered to build new types of application not easily possible before.

A long time ago, Adobe coined the term RIA or ‘Rich Internet Application’, at that time with both internet bandwidth and computer processor speed hindered the success of these RIA’s built in Flash being widely adopted, some simply did not work.

Forward to 2007-8, Adobe formally releases both the Flex framework and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). The combination of these two technologies are bringing RIA to a reality and even coining a new word called ‘Enterprise Level Flash’. This essentially sums up its maturity as a stable and accepted method for building nearly any type of application. Its focus is on the user experience and is primarily the part that users interact with, this can be anything from a fun gadget or widget comprising of a game or video media player to a full enterprise dashboard featuring live charts and data feeds from any database, RSS or web service.

The exciting difference is that these can be deployed in any combination of desktop or browser and in the very near future mobile. Finally we at the point where only our imagination is the limiting factor, how we pull and push data and finally display it in whatever creative or usable fashion is down to us as designers and developers.

Adobe have also released some supporting technologies that give us more power in delivering various multimedia assets like video (including High Definition) and ‘push content’ delivery which allows for more effective forum and messaging systems. Combined with Flex and AIR they make for some very interesting, brand new applications.

To summarise we are approaching another paradigm shift in the opportunities available to ‘Brand’ owners. There are always new terms created and recently ‘Branded Applications and Utilities’ is yet another to try and describe the next wave of cool stuff coming out of the various ‘Digital Agencies’, Ad.WRIGHT included.

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| Robert Scoble | Apr 25th, 2007 |

Ely Greenfield, Flex architect, David Wadhwani, vice president of Flex Product Line, and Mike Chambers, senior product manager, developer relations, walk to the whiteboard and give us a look at Adobe Flash’s architecture and give further details about what is being open sourced.

Adobe Announces Flex to become Open Source