No mention of the 800 lbs. gorilla–codec licensing and royalties. Who is paying for all of this plugin killing? Are we relying on “proprietary” OS vendors such as Apple and Microsoft to provide a common set of codecs and foot the bill (where’s the gain in that)? What about open source solutions like FreeBSD, Linux and Open Solaris? Oh and there’s this little thing called mobile–given its ascendancy it might be the major player in this market by the time HTML 5 comes along. And you guessed it–that means some sort of standard set of codecs will need to be on all of these devices before the HTML 5 video tag means much of anything.

While we’re at it I should mention that HTML 5 developers will need a whole slew of low level media APIs that allow them to build interesting media centric functionality into their widgets and web applications. I mean, you want all those fancy playback controls, tagging ratings, searching, etc., right?

Get all of this squared away and maybe you could talk about the death of web plugins (hell, existing plugin vendors are probably more afraid of new plugins than they are of HTML 5).

Gulp, looks like the folks at Wired don’t really know what they’re talking about.

I’m clicking both to see how smart the installers are…

*Update* For any MS chaps who stop by – after installing, I’m now being asked to download / install the latest version of Silverlight 2 every time I visit the page linked above.

According to Sun, they have the full support of any multimedia codecs installed on the native system as well as an on2 codec embedded within the runtime (see video quote below to hear their words for yourself).

Native codec support is sort of a mixed bag of control vs utility. JavaFX wants to do everything for every system even if that means you are effectively writing system specific code and delivering uneven experiences. If you manage to actually get the JavaFX runtime installed (no mean feat) you’ll be confronted by a wonderful security dialog which seems to ignore attempts to always trust the cert.

Once you’ve run the gauntlet of JavaFX impediments, you can actually watch some “native” (h.264 .mov files) overview videos playing inside JavaFX. The problem is that the rendering of these videos is far from native–any scrolling or resizing of the browser causes the video to stop rendering (a white rectangle is painted during these movements). I’m also surprised to see Sun using MPEG4-AVC / h.264, but not using aac audio. If you’ve got native codec support why use a crappy audio codec in your videos? The video below illustrates the rendering and audio issues (3 asides: 1) I’m bound and determined to ruin AfterEffects cartoon effect–look for me to overuse it and misapply it, 2) watch in fullscreen mode for 1:1 clarity, and 3) listen half way through to hear one of my kittens snoring).

If you ever wanted evidence of how important video is today, you need look no further than than the gigantic amounts of money Adobe, Microsoft and Sun are sinking into media centric runtimes. Like Silverlight 1.0, the initial JavaFX offering is a half-baked “me too” stab at capturing some video glory. Sure media has been a glaring hole for Java and I can appreciate how all the development platforms in the universe need to provide easier development and enable richer experiences, but so far I’ve been disappointed by the same ol’, same ol’ offerings from Microsoft and Sun. I’m sorry, but “hey look at the same stuff on my platform” isn’t innovative or visionary. As we watch Detroit’s “big three” burn out, I wonder if there aren’t lessons to be learned in our own industry as the nascent “media three” rise (maybe it should be w3m–web three media).

Often overlooked in all of the killer app dogma (or you can call it a smoking gun like Steve Gillmor) is the fact that adoption of Silverlight was event, rather than application, driven. It’s an important detail which we all need to remember and take advantage of. Real world needs / events drive our actions. They provide an opportunity to connect (Google’s holiday treatment of its logo) and fuel usage. YouTube’s user experience sure as hell isn’t driving use, but self-expression, narcissism and exhibitionism combined with low transaction costs for video self-publishing probably are. Very few of us are trolling for “killer apps” and even when confronted with a compelling design and experience we won’t be back unless there is a real need to drive use.

The Olympics are what I would call a disruptive event. An event with enormous audience breadth and compelling storylines that are information and rich media centric–right in the wheelhouse for RIA. When successfully leveraged they can precipitate dramatic rags to riches stories (very different from ubiquity). As an example, take a look at how JibJab successfully piggybacked on the presidential election cycle here in the States several cycles back and they continue to leverage holidays and other events.

Microsoft was smart to take advantage of the Olympics, but even that disruptive event fell way short of the adoption numbers we were hearing from them and the yellow press (yellow blogosphere just doesn’t roll off the tongue). It should be crystal clear to everyone that Silverlight won’t be a ubiquitous platform (98% penetration)
overnight or in the near term. They’re going to have to earn those stripes the same way the Flash Player did–slowly over time, developer by developer, site by site and viewer by viewer. There’s nothing wrong with that and it doesn’t mean the platform isn’t going to be successful. I wish them luck and hope for less hyperbole in the future.

However, it was the news that Silverlight 3 will support h.264 video and AAC audio that has me ready to sing Kumbaya, kiss the girls in Redmond or become an English soccer hooligan (lots of drinking and a sport I don’t have to pay much attention to…seems grand to me). Now in typical MS fashion they can’t seem to get out of their own way and appear to be pulling a Zoolander and taking credit for the codec’s development.

Self-aggrandizement aside, this is an absolutely huge move by Microsoft and one they should be lauded for. Sure they didn’t get there first (they actually won’t be there for quite some time) and the Flash Player team’s aggressive moves forced their hand, but the end result helps content creators and the industry as a whole out. It’s a move away from vendor lock-in and toward customer empowerment. Microsoft has big plans for Silverlight. They want it to be embedded on a lot of platforms (mobile handsets, consumer electronics, etc.). They don’t have a dominant market position which means they need to leverage existing and future content repositories. It’s a hell of a lot easier to sell customers on RIA platform than it is to sell them on RIA platform + video format, especially when changing video format means re-encoding a large library. Well done Microsoft. Way to connect the dots and make customer needs come first.

There are a few things to mull over here. First off, Adobe should buy the site and integrate it prominently into adobe.com. In fact, every company should have one of these pages. It should be a place for short, heartfelt and funny commentary from customers. No more hiding behind obscure support pages and difficult to find / use feature request and bug pages. I love the simplicity. There’s just a single-line text field and a submit button (one of the reasons I don’t often use the “feature request” pages is because there’s way too much form data they’re forcing me to jump through).

The bigger takeaway is the strong reaction against bloat and complexity. Even pros crave simplicity. Now Adobe is in a really tough spot. They’ve got a mature software suite that’s been enormously successful and that means lots of disparate and often competing interests. Users who have invested the time in learning the software will often resent any changes which force them to restart the learning process while pros will continue to demand more and more features. They’re also chained to a revenue driven product cycle with all the pressures that marketing and sales bring to bear. This scenario usually results in paralysis and continued bloat.

Essentially we’re looking at the classic innovators dilemma. A successful, mature offering that’s consistently moved further and further up the consumer food chain chasing higher payoffs from the so called pro / enterprise market. There’s a huge opportunity here for Adobe to lower the transaction costs of learning and using their software, but maybe at the cost of some of their entrenched users. What’s been increasingly clear over the last year or two is that Adobe is looking to fill the “low transaction cost” void with consumer oriented web applications spun off of their successful desktop offerings. Based on the “Dear Adobe” campaign it doesn’t look like this will be enough.

I’m assuming things will get optimized down a bit for the final release, but it sure doesn’t look it will ever be a skinny plug-in. On the plus side, the plug-in for both Safari and Firefox was included rather than having two separate installs which is nice, but I didn’t expect an install anywhere near this size.

The install process went much better than previous Silverlight installs have gone. For once, Safari didn’t trip up the detection script.

I’m a little underwhelmed by the video players that MSNBC has rolled out. The branding is heavy handed. Do I really need to be reminded that I’m using Silverlight after I’ve already installed?

Standard video player on MSNBC:

Larger video player on MSNBC:

The Olympics are definitely a cool and unique opportunity to push a technology. Taking advantage of disruptive events is something I expect to see more and more energy spent on in the tech world. Sure not all of us have the deep pockets that Microsoft has, but we can all ride the wave.

It would be fascinating to see what events actually propelled people to install Silverlight. Was it general interest in staying informed or was it a particularly special moment? For me it was seeing Jason Lezak hunt down Alain Bernard in the 4×100 free relay. What an incredible sporting moment!

A few things I just don’t get. Why is there no fullscreen? This is supposed to be the opportunity for VC-1 video to shine, but we aren’t able to check out fullscreen, high quality video? Seems a bit bizarre. Also, every time I push the replay button on a clip I’m forced to watch a commercial. That’s just plain annoying and greedy. I’m watching a progressively served video (I believe since its not a live stream), so why do I get punished every time I replay the video (I’m not even leaving the page)?

This was just a quick initial reaction. I’m interested, as a sports junky, how much I actually turn to the MSNBC coverage. I’m getting an HD feed piped into two rather large screens at home, so the web coverage has to be pretty compelling to compete.

*Update*

Apparently I’m a bit late to the game with my criticism of the player. If it helps anyone out, I arrived at my conclusions independently and hadn’t read the previous articles / comments on the subject.

http://newteevee.com/2008/08/10/does-the-olympics-video-suck-for-you-too/

Ryan Stewart also just posted some links to viewing data which is an important consideration if you’re watching the space.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=896

If the path to a man’s heart lies through his stomach, then golf is the Cour’souvra for his soul. All kidding, aside it was awesome to get the CEO treatment from Microsoft RIA evangelist Josh Holmes. The funny part is I wouldn’t have had the opportunity if I hadn’t run into Josh at the Mid-Michigan FlexCamp last week–its a strange world.

There are a few takeaways from the whole experience:

• RIA nerds, regardless of their platform of choice, are more alike than different. It’s not a zero sum world and we should dialog / get together more often.
• After talking to Josh I’m totally stoked to see the Silverlight apps and video MSNBC has put together for the Olympics. I hope its a “shock and awe” effort that propels RIA and web video forward.
• Michigan is a great place to live and work. We’ve got bright, funny, down to earth people, world-class universities, great quality of life, affordable cost of living and fantastic entertainment options. Through tech connections I’ve been to Major League Baseball, NHL and big time college football games. Yesterday though, was the icing on the cake. There aren’t too many places where you get to see major championship golf tournaments and Oakland Hills is a national treasure worth seeing on its own. The best part is there’s so much still left to do and see (NFL, NBA, auto racing, etc.).
• We ran into a PGA-IT staff member, Kevin Donahue, at the event and it turns out the PGA is excited about Adobe AIR and is using an AIR app for its POS system (weird how nerdy we managed to make a golf outing). AIR has a ton of potential. In my view, Adobe is riding a big wave in the deep ocean–its going to be interesting to see just how high the crest actually is.

It was a fantastic day and I’d like to once again thank Josh Holmes and Microsoft for their generosity. My expectations for tech evangelism just went sky high. ;-)

For those inclined, there’s a photostream below the fold (pretty much straight from the camera as I haven’t had a chance to weed and color correct).

Mitch mentions one of the things that differentiates SlideRocket is presentation analytics . This is actually one example of the tectonic shift content creation software is undergoing. Content creation tools, desktop or otherwise, must leverage the cloud (push and pull). What makes software owners successful is how their audience receives / interacts with their content. The rules of the game are changing. Content creation apps must not only create and deploy content to engaging presentation tiers, they must connect to or provide a great set of web services that bind creators to their audience. The audience is everything — risk losing sight of it at your own peril.

Mitch also notes how he fully expects SlideRocket’s AIR client to dominate the web tier Flex client.

This is the argument Dare Obasanjo was making the other day.

So what is SlideRocket doing? Maybe the web service just expands your audience reach and makes the product more accessible. Maybe the web service will be tiered with a free web client and a premium desktop client. However, the real differentiator between SlideRocket and PowerPoint or Keynote is the presentation, sharing and community building that a killer web service can bring. RIA is software and services packaged together and SlideRocket is schooling us on how it should be done. Wake up Neo.