The way we consume media content on the internet is changing very rapidly; with faster connection speeds, more powerful computers and mobile devices, the demand for richer content in greater quantities is increasing all the time.

More people are getting their news from social media networks and online media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Digg, instead of traditional television news broadcasts.

For example, YouTube’s Philip DeFranco who shares opinions on news and current events with a comedic twist, averaging 1.2 million views per episode, compared to approximately 500,000 US views for Larry King, the well known CNN interviewer.

Another example of online video being consumed by the masses was the recent Chile Earthquake, which was watched by 4.35 Million people through live news broadcasts via Ustream, a popular live video streaming website.

Just recently, Apple announced its new product the iPad, a tablet device that will run media applications and allow browsing the internet in a different way than a mobile device or desktop computer. Google also announced its plans for a tablet, and HP showed us its tablet, the Slate at the recent Consumer Electronics Show.

So with more and more devices appearing on the market, media/content providers are faced with the issue of delivering their content in a consistent way, across all platforms without having to supply it in multiple formats for each device.

How will the internet change to solve this issue? There are a few ways, firstly being mobile devices becoming more and more standardised, mobile operating systems are continually getting more refined and sharing similar features with one another, most commonly web browsing; major mobile phone manufacturers have teamed up together with Adobe in the Open Screen Project, an initiative that will “enable consumers to engage with rich internet experiences seamlessly across any device, anywhere”.  Essentially the mobile manufacturers are working with Adobe to get the new Flash Player 10.1 to work in their mobile browsers and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) applications to run on the devices operating system. This will allow applications that deliver media content to run as web and standalone (installed on the mobile) apps, creating a consistent user experience across different handsets, allowing content providers to deliver more media, more often knowing all their consumers are getting the same information.

Unfortunately, Apple is not part of this initiative and currently not allowing the flash player on the iPhone or iPad, however this may change in the future as the flash player evolves, for now though, Adobe is enabling developers to publish Flash and AIR applications as iPhone & iPad applications in the next version of the Flash authoring program – Flash Professional CS5, later this year.

Adobe AIR is already available on your desktop computer; you may already be using it without knowing.  AIR allows us to create Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) using web technologies that run on your desktop, they are cross platform (will install on a PC or Mac) and can be branded to be consistent with your business and website.

Some great examples of AIR applications are:

TweetDeck – A powerful Twitter, Facebook and other social network manager.

New York Times Reader – one of the best uses I’ve seen of AIR, delivering their content in a recognizable and usable way.

eBay Desktop – a great application that brings eBay's global marketplace to your desktop

KIDO'Z Browser - a web operating environment intended for children between the ages of 3-8yrs, to safely browse their favourite sites, play games and communicate with friends.

An impressive preview of things to come is WIRED Magazine’s AIR application running on an Android tablet device, shown at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month.

The other change we will see improving the access to richer media content is the highly touted HTML5, the next iteration of the language/code used to build websites that will support video, basic animations and web applications in the browser, without the need for the Adobe Flash Player.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about HTML5 and Flash and their pro’s and con’s, I’m not going to open that can of worms here, but I will say I believe the two technologies will end up working together in bringing new experiences to the user and create a much richer online environment.

HTML5 is a fair way off from being widely used and developed for, but with the growing popularity of modern browsers such as Google Chrome which support it and the early testing from sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, I think it will be here sooner than expected and you can be sure Zeroseven will be watching and waiting as technology evolves and utilising it to help give you and your consumers ‘the ultimate browsing experience’.

RO

Related information:

• Adobe announces Flash Player and AIR for Android
• Google acquires Picnik image editing web application
• Designing User Interfaces for Business Web Apps
• How small business is using Social Media 
• The 2010 Streamy Awards
• Adobe AIR Application Marketplace

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