As everybody knows, the promise of Java was that functionality written once could run unmodified on different machines, different types of devices and different types of runtime spaces (e.g., server-side, client-side or browser-based). But this isn't a commentary about Java, its successes, and where and how it fell short. Rather, this post is an assessment of how digital media and social computing are converging, and the role of Macromedia's (now Adobe's) Flash in the equation.
First, some backdrop. Just about everybody has Flash on their PC, and it works so well that 95% of the time you are not even specifically aware that it is running when you encounter application functions that are powered by it. This is so because Flash is not only cross-platform but runs seamlessly inside all of the major browsers.
So what does all of that ubiquitous goodness get you? Flash applications can handle database-driven attributes and contexts, and it is sufficiently feature rich that digital video, audio, gaming and messaging functions run natively and pretty much on-demand.
Let me explain what "on-demand" means in the world of Flash. It means that I can embed a tiny snippet of text into any web page anywhere on the web, and doing so completely replicates the form and function of whatever service the embedded URL is pointing back to.
Moreover, by making these embedding functions recursive within the Flash container application itself (see the Grab option below) such content and services can spread very virally.
The "so what" of all of this is that there are already a ton of services out there that are built around Flash and utilizing this friction-free distribution model to achieve huge user and usage numbers, which also proves the scalability of the approach. For example, all of the biggest internet video services, including my own vSocial and YouTube, are built to utilize Flash as the application space where the dynamic functions of the web site run within.
My other company, Me.com, a community of communities, uses Flash to enable users to visualize connected community spaces. I have another friend that has created a distributed gaming network called Bunchball built around Flash. And still another is about to launch an opinion polling community that is Flash-powered.
Goowy has used Flash to create a next generation webtop service that aspires to usurp the desktop. Web 2.0 photo-sharing community, Flickr, has done some pretty breakthrough things with Flash. Come to think of it, I have a meeting next week to meet up with a fellow Flash-master in the instant messaging and discussion group space. A whole lot of Flash-ing going on!
The amazing part of this from a developer perspective is that Flash is really not that hard to do some pretty impressive stuff with. It's scriptable so folks in that realm can go hog wild. And because there is a large and growing base of programmers, lots of re-usable libraries continue to find their way into the open source universe. In other words, pretty instant gratification.
The Power of Social Computing
People are right when they talk about social networking as an "architecture of participation." To put some scaling perspective on this architecture, 40M people today blog in some form or another. And for every "exhibitionist" that is inspired to self-express, there are 10X the number of voyeurs that come to watch, making this a game that is as much about reach as it is about the richness of the underlying content.
What this means is that for all of its goodness, the website-centric "post and host" model is giving rise to an "embed and spread" de-centralized, distributed one.
A simple example of this trend at work is that at vSocial, a garage band called Broadzilla can upload their music video to the vSocial web site, work the social networks by making friends, creating posts, commenting, participating in discussion groups, do the same on the music vertical sites, the blogosphere and generate almost a million plays of their music video all without spending a dime - or very few of them.
Multiply this by thousands of bands and you get a sense of how fundamentally this is beginning to disrupt the way music is marketed and empowering local bands in the process.
Structured Wikis
Let me extend this piece of fabric out a bit more. What if I could hook into all of different online information sources - the top online news sources, stock quote services, hiring boards, recipe sites, product listing and local listings, and provide a well formed way for consumers to aggregate, organize, personalize and distribute the chunks of meaning around a Wiki model.
In other words, the recipe, the review or the listing is a template. It is built around a consistent structure but is a reflection of the composite contributions of the entire network of participants chiming in with their two cents.
In this model, a Ford Mustang 2006 means the same thing across the entire network, enabling car aficionados or car dealers to profile their vehicles, rate them on quality and satisfaction levels, buy/sell custom parts, upload vehicle performance data to a portal where users can get a relative sense of how their vehicle stacks up, and share tips and tricks to optimize the performance of their vehicles.
On a more basic level, a Berkeley alumnus is not "UC Berkeley" grad in some cases and a "Cal" grad in others. This enables a more consistent way of like minds looking up and hooking up with one another.
One can extend this model out to TV programs, movies, music, books, wines, collectibles, pets, cars, sports, news stories, virtual worlds, financial analysis, local goods and services, enabling cultivation of conversations that are as deep (content rich) as they are wide (reflecting a broad cross-section of perspectives).
What's really kind powerful about this type of approach is that versus needing to be driven taxonomically by rigid top-down definitions, relationships between people, content and conversations can (for the most part) self-organize based on users simply moving forward and clicking, commenting, reviewing, rating, tagging or just watching (in the case of a video).
Over time, algorithmically you can recognize all sorts of patterns, such as users with similar interests, content that is related on one or more parameters, and what's new, popular and talked about, all of which serves as a searchable entry point into accessing the underlying detail.
Customizable Widgets
This is where widgets come into the equation. Widgets are transportable objects that are configured to run content, community, communications and/or commerce functions un-tethered from a specific website.
Container functions can run audio, video, animation and music, and visually enhance the presentation of information flows. Think lists, slides, charts, puzzles, polls, whatever. You can even run live web cam functions with the latest version of Flash. An e-wallet widget seems pretty much a no-brainer.
Within these functions I can run interactive ads or ad-like capabilities in pre-roll, post roll or interstitial fashion. I can package these things up in different types of skins or re-combine them on the fly.
Further, I can dynamically drive the content that is in the container based on tag-based filters, content selected by friends or other trusted sources, or content that is relevant to the topic at hand.
Loosely Coupled
Personally, this is the essence of the loosely coupled computing model that Java anticipated. Like most "overnight successes" that take a decade to fully breakout, the promise is now being delivered, and the proverbial network is the computer. Oh, that motto's taken. ;-)
The onset of the golden age of digital media has begun. The numbers don't lie in the sense that the user and usage data is jaw-dropping big. The fact that such services not only work but in many cases, work extremely well speaks to a model that scales, entertains and has a future wellspring of potential, the surface of which has only been touched.
This is a great space to be in as a consumer, producer or enabler.
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