What’s your favorite Flash Builder 4.5 feature?
In case you haven’t heard… Creative Suite 5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5 are now available for purchase and trial versions are also available. There are lots of new features in both Creative Suite 5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5… But what’s your favorite new feature? Record a quick video, submit it to YouTube, tag it with FB45FAVORITE and add the widget to your site and/or social network pages. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite feature!
Give yourself a MAX Unaward
If you follow me on Twitter you probably saw my tweets about a new secret project. Today I can finally reveal it to you.
I actually started this project somewhere mid-June. It all started with working on a widget for the Cannes Lions festival. I realized that it was probably a good idea to start thinking about a new widget for MAX. With close to 1 million views, last year’s MAX widget was a huge success (I was just checking the number before posting this and it actually passed the 1 million mark and is still generating views every day) and I thought it would be cool to try and match that number this year (although I realize that that’s a pretty big target). I knew I wanted to do something with video and more specifically do something with personalized video… and it had to be related to MAX. Once the storyboard was approved we recorded the video in a studio in Hilversum in The Netherlands. That was right before my trip to Japan. When I came back I started building the app and have been working on it for the last 3 or 4 weeks.
So… Without further ado… I present you… The Adobe MAX Unawards!
There are a couple of people I really need to thank for their help.
First and foremost: Wim Vanhenden. I think Wim is one of the most talented Flash developers in Belgium… but I decided not to use his Flash skills for this project. Wim is actually the host of the MAX Unawards show. Don’t ask me why but when I started working on the storyboard for the application, I almost immediately thought of Wim for the role of the host. I think it worked out great and we had a lot of fun recording this!
I also want to thank Klaasjan Tukker and Ton Frederiks for helping out with recording the video in the green key studio.
Big thanks also go to Paul Burnett. Paul worked on the personalized text pieces in Flash CS5.
This project would also not be possible without the help of Influxis. Thank you, Jerry, Grant, and Noe! If you ever need any Flash Media Server hosting you have to try these guys. Their custom admin panel alone makes it worth every penny.
UPDATE: Obviously also a big thank you to all the beta testers who gave me a ton of valuable feedback.
I just realized that this blog post is now starting to sound like an acceptance speech for an award… ;-) I should have just created a video for it! ;-)
I hope you guys enjoy the application. I’m looking forward to seeing what awards you give yourself and the creative acceptance speeches you create for it. Oh… and… Hope to see you at MAX!
Cannes Lions widget powered by Adobe and Influxis
The Cannes Lions Festival is only a few weeks away now. The Cannes Lions Festival is a global festival for those working in advertising and related fields. Thousands of delegates from around the world attend the festival to view shortlisted work and attend seminars, workshops and master classes (via Wikipedia).
Adobe is planning lots of seminars and workshops this year and we’re also helping out with the Young Lions competition. Our CEO Shantanu Narayen is also speaking at the event.
A few weeks ago I built a little widget for the festival. The idea is similar to the MAX widget. It displays the latest Cannes Lions news, users can record their own testimonials and it’s incredibly easy to add the widget to your own social network page, blog or site.
I used Adobe’s Distribution/Promotion Service to enable the share functionality in the widget. This service is incredibly easy to use. With just a couple of lines of code you can add the share menu to your application. There’s no need to write any code that talks to all the specific social network APIs. The Distribution/Promotion Service does all that for you.
The video recording is handled by Influxis. I had never used the Influxis service before but I kept hearing good things about them. I’m glad to say that they are all true! The Influxis admin panel is just amazingly easy to use. Literally within seconds you can have your FMS app up and running on their servers. Influxis is also one of the few providers that give you full access to the Flash Media Interactive Server which was needed to enable this in-app recording experience. I know this almost sounds like an Influxis commercial but trust me… If your app uses Flash Media Server you have to check out Influxis. They even provide a bunch of ready-to-go apps so you can get started in a few minutes.
If you’re going to Cannes for the Cannes Lions Festival, leave a message here or come and say “hi”. See you in Cannes!
Haiti needs your help! Show your support and help raise awareness!
I know this is extremely off topic but nonetheless I think it’s well worth pointing your attention to. I’m sure you’ve heard about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. According to the Red Cross, 3 million people (1 in 3 Haitians) are affected by the earthquake.
While Haiti is definitely not around the corner for most of us, you too can help. You can help by donating to the Red Cross, Unicef, Oxfam or other help organizations. Even the smallest amount can help. I’ve donated €25/$36 to the Red Cross which will be matched by Adobe.
You can also help raise awareness by adding this little widget (as seen on the right) I created this morning to your site. It’s extremely easy! Just click on the “grab and share button” and add it to your social network page, blog or site. After you’ve added it to your site, ask your friends to do the same.
TckTckTck
This is seriously off topic but important enough to blog about it. Right now, we are counting down to the most important meeting of our lives. This December, world leaders will come together in Copenhagen to hammer out a global climate treaty. There are less than 36 days left, which is enough time to show them that we want a bold, ambitious, and fair agreement. It is time for us to come together to build a cleaner and more secure world, but the clock is ticking.
Please join me in adding my voice to the largest mandate for action that the world has seen.
Check out www.tcktcktck.org and sign the pledge. You can also sign the pledge from the widget below. Show your support by adding the widget to your blog, social network pages and sites. It’s easy! Just click on the “Grab this” button and you’re almost done.
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