Web 2.0:: FAST re-born?

I am attending the talk on search produced from FAST, the search engine company out to tackle Google. As first I was a bit skeptical but Bjorn Olstad is a smart guy and started making sense. I'm going to give FAST a try and start doing my searches on it.

Interestingly enough, it raises a question brought up in the previous session I attended. How do I transfer my content from Google to Fast? I have a google start page made with quite an impressive array of widgets and information. This is my normal dashboard when I get online. The first things I want to see are Adobe's current stock price, weather reports, news from /., CNET, BBC, the Onion's RSS feed and a bunch of other stuff. How easy is it for me to transfer this information from Google to Fast? Has Google created an unfair market for Search based on adding so many periferal bits? Probably no but it is something I want to be conscious of in the future.

Fast - here I come. Send me some results. The Fast guys are smart, think I'll have some beers with them later. I also want to talk to them about how Adobe might work with them.

FTI ( /. means "Slashdot" for those who didn't get it)

Confused over Mozilla and AVM?

Hey y'all. So here I am at Web 2.0 and I am getting tons of people coming up to me stating some pretty wierd interpretations of our announcement today. For the record, the official announcement is here:

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200611/110706Mozilla.html

Please read this carefully to avoid the top 5 misperceptions:

1. We are donating Flash to open source. This is not true. We contributed source code for the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) to the Mozilla Foundation. AVM is the scripting language engine which interprets Actionscript during runtime. It is a very advanced and well thought out software application but like any other can benefit from new fresh contributions.
2. We have not donated the Flash Player to open source. Note that several /.ers think we are. It is also not true. FP != AVM.
3. We did not purchase Mozilla. One girl told me and several others ina hallway we did. I won't even get into this one....
4. We control the project in Mozilla caled Tamarin. No we don't - in fact giving the code to Mozilla is just the opposite.
5. We are not making flash director open source.

Folks - please read the release carefully....

Thanks

Hello from Web 2.0 2006 in San Francisco

I am at the Web 2.0 conference today. I have been treated like royalty today thanks to the huge announcement today that Adobe donated source code for the ActionScript Virtual machine (AVM - the code behind Flash) to Mozilla. The renewed and invigorated commitment to open source software has made us hugely popular with the crowds here. As an opportunist, I will be honest and state that I will accept any offers of free drinks on behalf of Adobe ;-)

A great session was put together to examine the subject of impact of SaaS and other W2P0 paradigms on Small Business. Google, Etelos, Soho and Microsoft were panel members. Some concerns that SMB’s voiced were the lack of good software use models (trials etc) are in contravention of the needs of SMB’s. Despite being standing room only, the session was pretty active. Danny from Etelos is a smart guy with a funny sense of humour (note the Canadian Spelling - I do this to poke fun at his USA accent and spelling mistakes WRT the queen's english. maybe he'll comment back ;-)



I pointed out during the discussion that Adobe has made huge strides in the area of SaaS to recognize that not all PDF users will pay $500 for a copy of acrobat if they think they will only ever need to make 5-10 PDF’s. We also offer the functionality of Acrobat Connect (formerly Breeze) and Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server as a Service. The question posed back was – when will Photoshop be a service? Interesting idea. There are a few good ideas that came out of this during the ensuing conversations:

1. Would someone make a web service to compile MXML into Flash files (*.SWF)?
2. Will our Web Service for PDF be extended to accept pure XML input and what format will that input be? Perhaps PxDF – an XML version of PDF?
3. What services will Adobe offer that can be used in Mashups? Currently, we enable many other companies to expose their services in a way they can be consumed.

The main conclusions drawn from this session are that ecosystems are good for services and there has to be trust in the service provider. SMB’s also need to know they are not locked in when using SaaS models.