JD's Forum

MAX To MAX

Looking over the past year, and to the year ahead

Each year people who work with Macromedia technology come together from all over the world to a central gathering. Although there are regular get-togethers and special events throughout the year in all types of locations, this central developers' conference regularly focuses attention on where we've been, and on where we're going. This article looks back over what has changed since last year's Macromedia Developers Conference, and looks ahead at some trends that may influence what we see until the next conference.

First, an aside: these get-togethers are important. The people I listen to online each day are an incredible group of people, spread throughout every country, every culture, every belief, every socioeconomic level. We permeate the world. The thing I see that unites them all is that they're smart, curious, creative -- there's a common understanding that we can make a better life for ourselves by making life better for others. Technology is just a tool to achieve these goals. We may each work in relative isolation through the year, but regularly connecting with others of like mind makes it easier to achieve the things we want.

In Florida in 2002 the main theme was about enhancing the user experience. Rob's keynote discussed the "experience-based economy", and showed how a simple coffee bean could be valued differently depending on whether it was sold raw in a sack, or roasted and packed in a tin, or sold in a takeout cup, or was surrounded by couches and wireless. The last year has brought this "designing for experience" concept to the mainstream, as music devices, telephones, applications and computers themselves become more highly valued for how usable and enjoyable they are -- what they say about the user's sense of style and comfort -- not just whether they provide raw functionality or not.

Rich Internet Applications were a new concept back in 2002. The discussions were all about "Don't kill HTML!" rather than "What works better outside of a browser?" Since then the ideas about doing things with network connectivity, rather than just looking at prepared materials has gone mainstream... even Jeremy Allaire's term "RIA" has spread from meaning just Flash to any effort to provide a better user experience while doing things on the network.

Last year the realtime audio/video services of Flash Communications Server were still just a glimmer. The fast transfer of binary data through Flash Remoting was a new concept, and the complementary use of clientside pull of remote web services did not yet have a practical implementation. The enabling of legions of content providers through Macromedia Contribute had not yet taken off. Clientside Flash was derided as "too slow" and "just a toy". HTML pages were still made with TABLE and FONT tags because few sites had yet accepted CSS for their audiences. Presentations and meetings like Macromedia Breeze were unknown: simple to create, easy to attend, attractive and functional to use. There was no easy way to distribute persistent internet tools, such as we're now seeing inside Macromedia Central. Java-based ColdFusion, components and services were all an untested experiment. Programmers who wanted a predictable and capable clientside engine balked at deciphering an animation timeline.

Things have changed a lot over the last year. I think they'll change even more over the next. Not everyone rides these technological waves -- many professionals remain successful with past high-water marks like desktop publishing, CD-ROM and presentations, or regular Web publishing -- but surfing atop a new wave can provide much momentum in reaching new opportunities. Here are some of the trends which I believe can affect MX-style work over the next year:

Remote data services: The widespread availability of web services is sort of a chicken-and-egg problem -- it's hard to rationalize creating a data feed unless there are applications to use them, and it's hard to justify creating an application unless you have a good selection of feeds to use. The RSS debates in blogging have had a fortunate side-effect of sensitizing an entire group of web professionals to the techniques of manipulating large numbers of XML files either on the server or on the client. There's pressure to turn "RSS Readers" into generic service shells for all types of feeds, instead of creating a variety of feed-using interfaces each tuned to a specific user task. Most data sources still tie their data to a particular presentation (compiling with HTML on the server, eg), but awareness of the value of neutrally-formatted networked data is widespread and increasing.

Pervasive computing: It's much easier now to carry around a device with processor, display, and input. Computers continue to get lighter and cheaper... PDAs are still increasing their abilities... phones, while limited due to form factor, are evolving at an astounding rate. If you glance around in a public place today you'll see a wide variety of people already carrying some type of computer on their person. The connection rates will remain difficult for the forseeable future -- high-bandwidth is available at home and office, but it will be a good amount of time until even low-bandwidth wireless connectivity is universally available. We've got to work on ways to optimize the user experience regardless of the moment's connectivity.

Mobile phones: This is difficult to predict, but may be the hottest area of all. Unlike a computer, a phone's use is defined by its network and the local services you can consume. It's hard to be the only person in an area with a new type of phone. Variables to adoption include not only individual consumer choices but also whether a manufacturer can produce models for a region and whether a service provider supports the desired services. Atop that, the limited display and input capabilities of such a small device make application design very different from that for a full computer. But the possibilities are great for such an intrinsically networked, always available device. We may not be able to predict which model is most popular for which purposes at which times, but the overall importance of this area -- its speed of application evolution and room for growth -- is hard to overestimate.

Hardcore programmers on the desktop: Many web professionals think just about code, rather than about the visual and tactile experience of what real people end up doing with that code. Many of them worked with server technologies, where abstract data had no visual aspect. With the Royale project providing a way to create high-impact clientside experiences in code we may see an infusion of new approaches and workstyles here. What happens when enterprise programmers can create as easily for the desktop as for the server? Will teams change, will new consultancies open up? How can you differentiate your work from these new entries to interface design? This shift in abilities may be another change to watch for this year.

The Microsoft effect: In October Microsoft unveiled an early incarnation of the next version of its Windows operating system, codenamed "Longhorn" and expected towards 2006. Longhorn's principles are startlingly similar to what we've been talking about here for the last two years: richer user experiences with transparent vectors and video and more, the utilization of remote data sources in local applications, the ability for local applications to safely share permitted private data, the increased use of high-level components and XML interface techniques. The agreement on these supply-side technologies is important validation for MX initiatives, and will also increase awareness and acceptance among mainstream press and potential clients. The two companies differ greatly in their demand-side orientation -- Longhorn will eventually use such tools to deep level for people on all-Microsoft systems, while MX will be working towards a safely sandboxed service layer floating above the user's choice of environments -- but such agreement on the goals and choices of technologies will likely benefit our own work both before and after Longhorn arrives.

Breeze: This is sort of a quirky trend, but it's important to keep on your radar. In its short life Macromedia Breeze has made great inroads into corporations and institutions. When people see Breeze, they love it, and sales have been very strong. This likely won't have a direct effect on your own work in the near term -- Breeze isn't an easily extended or customized environment, so it's hard to see it as "a platform" in its current state -- but the important point is that a surprising number of people are gaining day-to-day experience with these types of technologies and the experience they provide. Breeze could very well play an influential role in the overall adoption of this new type of work.

Player adoption: This isn't a new trend, but what's surprising is how persistent it is... the rate of public adoption of the Macromedia Flash Player continues to accelerate. One of the hardest tasks in all technology is to provide a capability to a wide audience. SWF is fortunate to enjoy a continually increasing public acceptance. The previous Player topped out at about three million completed downloads a day before maintaining at 2.4 million, and the new Macromedia Flash Player 7 has already been reaching the level of 3.8 million completed downloads a day. Major sites such as Yahoo! are already serving SWF7 files to their audiences. Phones and other devices almost consider it de rigeur to include SWF-rendering capabilities. I feel like I've gotta knock-on-wood for mentioning it, but despite the Macromedia Flash Player already being the most popular web technology, it still seems to be on an upward trend beyond that!

These are some of the trends I'm personally watching. There are lots of other important trends, such as security and privacy awareness, handling anonymity in a reputation-based network, homogeneity or heterogeneity in computing systems, the increasing spread of information power to a wider variety of people in the world, many more. But these are some of the trends that I think may have the biggest direct impact on MX-style work over the next year.

Enjoy this year's MAX conference, whether you're attending in-person or online... it should be a wild ride until the next one!