Why Adobe Edge Says Nothing About Flash’s Future
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/webdev/231300020

I think “nothing” is a declarative statement that’s flawed. The title should be “Why Adobe Edge Says Nothing About Flash’s Immediate Future” to be more accurate and flexible to unpredictable developments. JavaScript has replaced a number of things people relied on Flash for, because JavaScript engines are a part of browsers that each browser development team has control of. Flash Player can’t be improved on by browser teams. It’s performance rests with Adobe, which has been variable.

CSS3 has animation features, but would I use it beyond animation needs with just a few key frames (like a web widget discoverable transition action) or for experimental work? Not really.

I’d likely use a JavaScript library widget or, for long-form animation, I’d still use Flash or render a video of the animation. If I had web video I wanted people to see, would I just publish it in Flash today? Only if I didn’t care that the growing mobile web audience won’t view it nicely. It’s pretty foolish to limit a growing audience. Maybe I want to prevent anyone from downloading it easily.

The biggest benefits this article mentions about Flash are the familiarity with tools (something that can change rapidly) and that it has digital rights management that web standards methods (HTML5 video tag) don’t. Flash isn’t foolproof though. I’ve seen Flash video capture tools out there. No encoding or tool is a panacea to the reproduction of digital content. Hollywood, the record companies and book publishers can’t sleep easily if their business model is based on DRM. It makes things harder for casual users, but they’ll never stop the motivated.

Maybe I’m less visionary on this, but I’ve never thought “Boy, I wish I didn’t need to use my local storage for more music.” Could be I just don’t have a huge music library, but more likely, it’s nice to cloud-store content and not need to keep managing what’s synced or downloaded locally.

Maybe it’ll be nice to stream my library from anywhere, freeing up local storage for apps, but being someone who lives in a data-capped world, usage needs to be watched. I imagine Verizon will join the capped data world soon, but for now, unlimited plans are a nice benefit they offer if more content moves to the cloud.

It’s interesting that Amazon just decided to launch their cloud music system and were confident enough that the music labels wouldn’t destroy them in court, because I imagine they’re pretty bitter. It’s amazing that Google tried to talk to them first, and the labels tried the old nickel and dime licensing thing, so they’re just letting users do it, so labels lost a new distributer in Google. It’s an iTunes vs Amazon world in music. Meanwhile, Apple’s in talks to get labels on board for their cloud music for June.

What’s amazing is that this system is already in place for apps and you don’t see software developers bitching and whining about consumers being able to redownload stuff they already bought. Both Apple and Google devices know what you bought and let you redownload. Only the music industry thinks every outlet is an opportunity to reach in your wallet for the same content. Well, I guess Hollywood does it too. They’re probably paranoid that cloud storage for licensed content could be hacked to share. The genie’s out of the bottle, though, and they’re spending tons on lawyers to keep pushing him back in.

It’s interesting that the paid subscription of Netflix has become a huge disc/stream content distributor, while TV networks like NBC and Fox co-own Hulu, yet they’re still working from an ad-supported revenue model and trying to be profitable. Obviously THAT’S going to change. Hulu won’t be “free” for long.

Netflix says the app works well when switch between WiFi AND AT&T’s 3g network. Well, THAT explains AT&T ending unlimited data plans for new subscribers. I actually exceeded 2gb over the cell network one month, probably because it was when my daughter was born. Lots of constant data streaming/posting that month. Maybe I’ll keep that “unlimited” plan…

This is pretty spectacular though. As Netflix adds more streaming content licenses, they’re going to be incredibly successful in competing with cable TV providers as an on-demand, everywhere content provider. Netflix has wisely forgotten about former rival Blockbuster and is clearly targeting a different market. I already know a handful of people that went without cable and solely Netflix before they even had streaming Internet distribution.

The trade off of 30-day delays on new disc releases for the rights to other shows/films to be distributed through streaming is actually looking better and better. I’m getting more impressed with their on-demand streaming options (lots of educational TV, like NOVA, History Channel, etc. which are crazy expensive to buy on disc).

The CEO should be commended for being a visionary and realizing that disc-based media, which his whole company was founded on, could become the next VHS in a short period of time. Few business leads create something so successful and don’t rest on their laurels, assuming things won’t change. Reed Hastings has wisely bargained a small fraction of the Netflix subscribers’ value (first month availability to rent a movie) to content providers in exchange for more content to provide at available at anytime, nearly anywhere. Few customers will drop Netflix because of this. In fact, with their brilliant moves of pushing streaming content onto every single modern home video game console on the market, they have a tremendous number of ways to get people access to content on the place they wanted it most: their big screen TV. If it wasn’t for live HD sports, I’m pretty sure I could cancel cable TV right now.

Comcast is claiming Xfinity will bring their “content everywhere” goal to life. On Demand from your DVR through the cell networks or wifi to your phone is a great counter to Netflix everywhere. The sticking point I’d have with that being a reality is the HUGE disparity between service quality levels when you compare Netflix and Comcast. With streaming through cell towers coming in weeks, not “one day”, Netflix has already started beating Comcast to market with a similar premise and a lower price. It’s not exactly the same, since you’re limited to Netflix’s streaming library, but the concept is real and it is comparitively inexpensive.

The other angle on this new competition is consumer satisfaction. One of these companies is a service that subscribers LOVE and sell to their friends on the convenience, expediency and quality. One emails subscribers with quick surveys to keep tabs on how they’re doing by gathering data on how quickly subscribers are getting discs and the quality level of streaming content: a method of consistent quality control.

I’ve never, EVER had Comcast ask me how the Eagles game looked in HD, certainly NOT when there were issues with the cable line that weekend. Nor did I ever get the feeling that any complaint I had would be resolved quickly.

The irony is that Netflix is increasingly dependent on Internet service providers and Comcast is also the same company that I’m saying they are competing with (who also owns majority of NBC, a content provider of TV shows that Netflix rents and streams).

If battle lines haven’t been drawn, they may be soon. I wonder if a break down of net neutrality would ever have negative effects on the stream quality a firm like Comcast allows to a competitor like Netflix streaming content. Suddenly, that net neutrality issue is no longer about cutting down on piracy through bit torrent. It’s potentially about Internet service providers limiting consumer choice and monoploistic practices.

http://mashable.com/2010/04/15/gmail-drag-and-drop/