Tag Archives: statistics

Putting things in perspective: Measuring Flash Player penetration.

by Serge Jespers on 23. Mar, 2009 in Flash Player, Industry

Last week, when the news broke about the number of downloads “that other browser plugin” got, it got me thinking… What does that number really mean in terms of impact?. Can you really use download numbers as a way to measure how successful a technology is? The answer is “no” and the reason is very simple: A download still doesn’t mean that the user installed it.

adobe_flash_logo_60x60So how does Adobe measure the impact of the Flash Player? A few months back, Emmy Huang (product manager for Flash Player) wrote a comprehensive blog post about it. Emmy wrote:

It’s interesting to note that for Adobe, the number that is quoted is an “install” and not a “download” number. [...] We have an internal dashboard application to track the general “health” of Flash Player downloads and installs, and it can chart the data daily, weekly, monthly, etc. It uses XML feeds of our server log data from Akamai, our current CDN. The dashboard is useful in helping us 1) to understand our traffic so we can try to optimize things like install success rate, and catch problems with our installers or CDN delivery in a matter of days, and 2) get a sense of where our penetration might be in the penetration study in the next wave. The penetration study is only run once a quarter, and it’s hard to wait three months to know where we’re at. [...]

For “Player downloads” we count the attempted and successful downloads for all the player installers we post to the CDN (based on the related HTTP status codes), such as “swflash.cab” and “install_flash_player.exe” (note these numbers aren’t unique.) We also count the number of installs, which is the sum of requests for a small text file that a newly installed player requests the first time it is launched in the browser. That number is used as an estimate – we’ve had releases where the text file request wasn’t implemented or working on certain platforms, and since it is only requested once there are a number of reasons why it might not make it all the way to the server. [...]

As with any statistics, you should understand the methodology behind the numbers. But the good thing about that number is it is something you or another third party like Forrester, can independently test or verify — which makes it the more interesting and important number for Flash Player.

Read full story • Comments { 8 }

Adobe AIR 100 million installs, Flash Player 10 already on 55.9% of all PCs

by Serge Jespers on 29. Jan, 2009 in AIR, Flash Player, News

flash10at55Did you know it took 38 years for radio to get 50 million users? 13 years for TV to get to that number and 4 years for the Internet to get to 50 million users? (according to Discovery Channel)

Adopting new technology seems to go faster and faster and the Flash Player census numbers prove this every quarter. The most recent numbers (published just now), show that Flash Player 10 was installed on more than 55 percent of computers worldwide in just the first two months of its release! That means it will surpass 80 percent by the second quarter of 2009, far outpacing the installation rate of past versions of the software.

The AIR runtime has also been doing very well. In less than one year after its initial release, there have been more than 100 million installations of Adobe AIR! On top of that, there have been over 1 million downloads of the AIR software development kit (SDK), the free open source Flex framework and Adobe Flex Builder in the last 12 months.

A big thank you goes out to all the developers out there who are building cool apps on top of the Flash Platform. Flash on!

Update: Also check Adrian Ludwig’s blog post on how we measure these installations.

Read full story • Comments { 8 }

8 misconceptions about Flash video

by Serge Jespers on 23. Dec, 2008 in flash video

I recently came across a couple of serious misconceptions about Flash Video and I thought it was a good idea to set the record straight.

#1 – Flash Video is progressive download only.
While progressive download is an option, streaming live or pre-recorded content is also possible using a Flash media streaming server or service provider. Obviously Adobe has it’s own offering in this space but third party and open source alternatives are also available.

#2 – Streaming Flash Video is expensive.
With an open source alternative available, streaming Flash Video can cost as little as $0 (obviously not counting hardware or bandwidth costs).

#3 – Flash Video quality is terrible. Just look at YouTube.
With Flash Video, you can publish video to any quality ranging from a stamp-size video in a banner to 1080p full HD video. The publisher has complete control over the quality of the video.

#4 – Flash Video streams can’t be protected.
There are a couple of ways of protecting your Flash Video stream. Adobe’s Flash Media Server provides RTMP-based streaming directly into Flash Player, avoiding the browser cache. SSL encryption and additional authentication mechanisms can also be added to more directly target the client player (Whitepaper PDF). With the recently released Flash Media Rights Management Server, publishers can further protect their streams with DRM.

#5 – Flash is a closed format that works with proprietary video codecs.
Both the SWF file format specification and the FLV/F4V specification are available to the public as part of the Open Screen Project. Flash Video can be published with 3 different codecs which are part of the Flash Player (so no additional installs are required). The Sorenson Spark codec and On2’s VP6 codec are the oldest codecs. The industry standard H.264 video codec was added in Flash Player 9 and allows you to publish video to the Flash Player up to 1080p full HD video.

#6 – I can only use Flash Video in a browser.
Adobe AIR (available for Mac, Windows and Linux) allows you to build real desktop applications with web technologies including JavaScript, HTML and Flash. Since the Flash Player is at the heart of the AIR runtime, it is obvious that you can also use all of the Flash Player features including Flash Video. Adobe AIR 1.5 also supports the DRM capabilities provided by the Flash Media Rights Management Server.

#7 – Flash Video is difficult to use.
For developers: Adding Flash Video to a Flash project (made with Flash Professional or Flex and targeted for Flash Player or Adobe AIR) is as easy as adding any other asset to your project. If you can add an image to your project, you can also add Flash Video.
For end-users: The majority of internet users won’t need to install anything extra. 98.3% of all internet connected PCs have Flash Player 8 or higher installed, meaning they can instantly view Flash Video encoded with either the Sorenson Spark or On2 VP6 codec. 89.4% have Flash Player 9.0.115 installed. That version of the Flash Player has H.264 video and HE-AAC audio playback, multi-core support and hardware scaling of HD quality full-screen video. This means that most users can play your HD H.264 video from the instant the page is loaded.

#8 – Only YouTube uses Flash Video.
According to comScore, 80% (up from 72%) of online videos are viewed Worldwide using Adobe Flash technology. This makes Flash Video the #1 video format on the web. Renowned broadcasters like CNN, BBC, NBC, FOX and many others use Flash Video as their main video format.

Read full story • Comments { 13 }

RIAs take Christmas shopping to a whole new level

by Serge Jespers on 23. Dec, 2008 in Industry, RIA

Around Christmas time, shopping malls and streets are crazy. Everyone seems to want to buy their Christmas gifts at the very last moment which usually turns this task in to a an absolute nightmare. Why not get your Christmas gifts online? I know some people will say that you can’t really browse through an online store and they are right. Well… They used to be right. There are a couple of really good examples online that let you browse an online store just as you would browse a physical store.

windowshop

Amazon’s Windowshop is still in beta but is already very promising and it actually works! While preparing for this blog post, I was browsing through the Windowshop and found a book about the Obama campaign. When I clicked on it to get more information, a female voice started reading the synopsys of this book. Right after that, I bought the book.

windowshop2

When you click on a DVD or video game, you get a trailer to get an idea on how it looks. When you click on an album or audiobook, you hear an excerpt from it. When you like something, you just add it to your shopping cart and continue browsing. No need to wait in line to pay for your gifts, no need to wait in line to get giftwrapping. You can just do it from the comfort of your home.

The Magic Shelf on the homepage of Borders.com is another great example.

borders

The Magic Shelf is the first thing you’ll see when you point your browser to Borders.com. It’s like the first shelves you see when you walk in to an actual Borders store. It displays all the new releases and staff picks. The Magic Shelf gives you detailed product information and customer reviews while making it easy to add the products to your wish list or shopping cart.

This is what rich internet applications (RIAs) are all about. Using the best of the web to make tasks like this easy to use and fun. And it also pays off for the retailer. First of all, they can quickly and easily update these RIAs so that their homepage is constantly changing, creating reasons for shoppers to return regularly. It also allows them to quickly respond to events (e.g. the election of a new president). By putting The Magic Shelf RIA on their homepage, Borders.com already dramatically improved their key metrics.

11% of all users are likely to recommend a product using The Magic Shelf. 41% more products are viewed and they also saw a 62% higher conversion after putting this RIA on their homepage (Source: Allurent).

I absolutely love these RIAs and wish that European e-tailers would soon follow their example. With numbers like these, they would be stupid not to…

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Flash video kicking major ass!

by Serge Jespers on 31. Oct, 2008 in Flash Player, Industry

According to the latest comScore statistics, the market share of Flash video on the web continues to grow. The numbers are pretty impressive and clearly show that Flash video is the best way to deploy video on the web. Especially interesting about these stats is that it is the AUGUST report, which includes all of the online Olympics coverage in North America including the much talked about NBC coverage that Microsoft promoted so heavily for Silverlight. (more…)

Read full story • Comments { 2 }