JD on EP

We were really compelled by Flex 2 and went with it to develop our product. It's great.

And like you said, as the player and Flex apps start to play even better together, the experiences on the web will get even better (for more and more people).

if downloads of Flash cost 99 cents each, would the numbers have been different? If there were no auto-update feature, would they have been lower? I'd bet if iTunes tracks were free, their download numbers would have been orders of magnitude higher...

This is not a very effective comparison. A better one would be downloads of the iTunes client versus those of the Flash player.

I agree, this comparison is rather worthless. itunes client, quick time player, etc. versus flash player would've been a much better comparison. Nonetheless, the adoption rate of flash player has always been an amazing thing. I think we can all accept now that flash player is totally ubiquitous and there's really no more need for drawing these comparisons anymore. Plus, the player auto-updates and adobe can shove anything down to the client, including AIR which I'm sure they'll be "auto-updating" everyone with real soon. So, there's no more need to say "oh wow, people have adopted flash 9 just like they adopted flash 8 and flash 7 etc. etc..." It's become very old hat and the main reason people "update" is not because they're so excited about having their new flash player version, it's just because they hit a site that finally requires it! The average Joe on the street is running flash player but probably doesn't even know it, he just hit the "accept" button so that he'd be able to watch some dumb youtube video or whatever. Hearing people talk about how "flash player 9 has been adopted so quickly" is like hearing someone say, "hey! those automatic windows updates have been adopted super fast!", it just sounds stupid

Of course you can't directly compare the two technologies. I said as much in my original post. But if the audience numbers for one are significant, then the larger audiences for the other are even more significant.

(I checked for stats on how many iTunes client installations were successfully completed -- without result -- but it's obviously nowhere near the same range as the Player.)

I agree with Peter that the stats shouldn't be necessary by this pint. But we're still seeing many reporters regard something with zero installed base as being parallel to something with nearly universal installed base. The concept of minimizing audience costs still has not fully penetrated the public mind.

I disagree with Peter on the subject sounding stupid -- the Flash ecosystem offers the most rapid realworld uptake of new capabilities, version by version by version. When a new ability is engineered, you'll be able to use it for practical commercial deployment in a year. Support for Flex 2 is growing faster than the successful music store.

Summary: If you're a musician, you can sell into the attractive Apple network, and iTunes Store is a worthy topic of conversation. If you're a developer, you can deploy atop the much wider Adobe network. The audience is much larger with the latter.

jd/adobe

D'Arcy said...."I'd bet if iTunes tracks were free, their download numbers would have been orders of magnitude higher..."
....but you and I know, iTunes is NOT free! BUY video and you can watch it on your expensive AppleTV or iPhone....
....or watch a zillion videos for free on the Flash 9 player!!
NewCo and Fancast coming....Watch the fullscreen HD Flash 9 video take off this fall....just in time for the Adobe Media Player and Flash Lite 3........
The ubiquitous Flash video is about to hit full stride!
Come to think of it, I'd bet iTunes video sales begin a slow death starting.....now!

".or watch a zillion videos for free on the Flash 9 player!!"

Free? Is that why your On2 stock is going down the toilet, jhm212?

I can see what you're getting at here JD but the title is (deliberately?) misleading.

I get the fact that Flash is downloaded WAAAAAAY more often than people think. Although i hadn't realised that this margin had been so huge :-)

"If you thought iTunes was popular then...." might have been a better approach.

While we're on the iTunes/Flash subject though. I find it a very clever bit of marketing how Apple bundle QuickTime with iTunes. This will keep QuickTime on the web video race for a bit longer.

Does Adobe collect stats from where people come when they are prompted to install flash. I'd love to know (for sure) which sites are driving this increasing demand for flash - youtube, myspace ?

Is there a strategy in place for SWFs on these popular sites to be published using the very latest features to push the web to the lastest release of flash ?

Either way, it's great news for Flash and the web that so many people are adopting the technology. As jhm212 states above, Flash video is about to hit full stride.

Hah - just read over a couple of your previous 'vs' posts. I get where you're coming from with the title. Nice one :-)

I've downloaded various versions of Flash 9 at least a dozen times if not more experimenting with it. I wonder how many others have done the same? That would make the actual number of people that have downloaded it a lot less.

[jd sez: You need to read what was written. We're talking here about completed installations, not fresh installations onto a virgin system. (And when you don't sign your name, it leads to suspicion this is intentional obliviousness.)]

I'm not talking about fresh installations on virgin systems either. Sorry if I use JT, "jd".

"'If you thought iTunes was popular then....' might have been a better approach."

True. I was looking at wordcount in the lede. Thought I got the idea across in the paragraph, but.... ;-)

"Does Adobe collect stats from where people come when they are prompted to install flash. I'd love to know (for sure) which sites are driving this increasing demand for flash - youtube, myspace ?"

I don't think so. If we logged referrer info then it would be easier to find what causes adoption spikes. Last winter there was a sharp jump in daily installations, and we were trying to figure out the cause, and the only info we had was that they all came from China. Most likely cause was a reality porn video from a movie star, but it took some research to figure out. We know where we send the bits, and when it successfully starts, but that's it.

(Once again, we are not attempting to extrapolate the number of unique users here. When a new installation starts up it pings a certain Adobe page, so we're just measuring the number of successful installations per day. This is buttressed on a quarterly basis with testing of which types of web content regular consumer focus groups can view.)

jd/adobe