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Gaining and retaining traffic are the top goals
of every Web business. Whether to build brand identity, sell
products, support customers, or educate the masses, Web sites
must succeed in the midst of the incredible paradigm shift
from the Web-as-brochure to the Web-as-community-space.
"Though the Web grows by 50% per year, popular online communities
expand at 20% per month. Communities are sticky, they're viral,
and they drive traffic." —builder.com
Shockwave Multiuser Server 3 is the drag-and-drop solution
for creating and running scalable, multiuser communities,
multiplayer games, and entertaining Web content. The Shockwave
Multiuser Server lets you enhance your site with crowd-pleasing
group interactivity and magnetic destination content in a
matter of minutes.
The Shockwave Multiuser Server Solution
Shockwave Multiuser Server is the technology which allows
Web developers to quickly and easily take advantage of the
trend toward rich-media community using the industry's leading
multimedia development software: Macromedia Director.
You can incorporate rich-media community into your Web site
with more flexibility, scalability, ease of use, and power
than with any other community building solution. In fact,
multiuser content can be a key facet in any application (such
as e-commerce, customer service, and technical support) where
community is the key to a better, more engaging user-experience.
Deliver online multimedia communities and connected entertainment.
With the Shockwave Multiuser Server, you can author in Director
and deploy with Shockwave Player to create engaging multiuser
communities on your site. The Shockwave Multiuser Server supports
all the media formats found in Shockwave content including
3D, animation, sound, vectors, graphics and text. In addition,
the Shockwave Multiuser Server allows you to integrate realtime
communications, persistent data storage, and multimedia into
your multiuser content.
Emerging Multiuser Content Opportunities
There are several different usage areas where multiuser
content is becoming the key to differentiate and drive traffic
to Web sites.
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E-commerce. |
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Technical support. |
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Online conferences. |
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Business presentations.
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Entertainment. |
E-commerce
"90% of online shoppers want some sort of human interaction
in the process" —Jupiter Communication
As e-commerce continues to grow, it becomes clear that human
interaction is a necessary (yet mostly lacking) component
to the online buying experience. While only 30% of shopping
transactions started online are completed (Internet World
September, 1999), an even smaller percentage of people who
visit a site even attempt to make a purchase. The ability
to ask a question—something that we take for granted
in most brick-and-mortar shopping experiences—has largely
been ignored in the online world. This phenomenon is now beginning
to change as e-commerce developers take advantage of multiuser
capabilities to add human interaction to their sites.
Technical Support
User-friendly technical support and customer service is
a key element for any online business. With live, online communities
(like those supported by the Shockwave Multiuser Server) technical
support and customer service can be implemented in an effective
and cost efficient manner. Solutions include one-to-one sales
service, one-to-many customer support, online conferences,
business presentations, and entertainment.
One-to-one Sales Service
Live online sales support helps to ensure that customer's
questions and concerns are addressed during the sales process,
much the same way as in a brick-and-mortar environment. This
increases sales and decreases customer calls.
One-to-Many Customer Support
Companies may implement a technical support waiting room,
where customers can read a "tip of the day," chat, or even
answer one another's questions. Technical support one-to-one
calls could be made public so that others may listen-in and
find answers to their questions. With text chat-based technical
support, there is a greater opportunity for logging calls
and monitoring success and hot issues. The overall affect
of the aforementioned technical support options is to reduce
technical support costs and increase customer satisfaction.
Online Conferences
"The Shockwave Multiuser Server is flexible and enables
us to define the features we need and then build new features
as we need them." —Ed Krimen, Macromedia, Inc. on the
decision to use Shockwave Multiuser Server for macromedia.com's
online conferences.
Companies who utilize the Shockwave Multiuser Server technology
can easily schedule online conferences where a guest (or guests)
can provide information to visitors in a question-and-answer
format. Text from these online conferences can be made available
to future visitors. With this type of activity (moderated
chat with guest speaker), the company provides information
about products that can reach more users, more effectively.
Business Presentations
Bring businesses with far flung offices together for meetings
and presentations. Using the Shockwave Multiuser Server, a
speaker could click through a presentation online while an
audience simultaneously participated in a question-and-answer
session and discussion.
BP Amoco, with Web telepresence company WebSymposia, uses
the Shockwave Multiuser Server to enable a global audience
of employees to experience and participate in live company
presentations. Recently, petroleum engineers in a shed on
a UK oil field delivered a presentation that included synchronized
slides, Shockwave demonstrations, and Flash animations presented
in real-time to participants. The server also enabled participants
to chat live with one another and to vote on issues.
"The Shockwave Multiuser Server enabled us to construct
this event very quickly and flexibly around BP Amoco's needs,"
said Peter Scott of WebSymposia. "The multiuser features of
the Shockwave Multiuser Server offer us a huge potential for
shared Internet experiences. We have only begun to scratch
the surface of this very exciting initiative."
Entertainment
Multiuser content has typically been associated with entertainment
applications such as multiplayer games. With the Shockwave
Multiuser Server, developers can create proven popular multiuser
content in a much easier way. In addition, a whole host of
new entertainment options (such as multiuser creativity applications)
are possible. Developers are already creating interesting
and compelling entertainment content with the Shockwave Multiuser
Server solution. Several examples are available in the Macromedia
Director Gallery.
Developer-Driven Advantages
When we asked Web developers what they were looking for
in a multiuser content authoring and deployment solution,
they told us about four key elements that did not yet exist
in any single solution.
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Robust authoring application.
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Ubiquitous Web playback
mechanism. |
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Cross platform support for
authoring and playback. |
The Shockwave Multiuser Server solution was developed in
response to these developer wishes, with the following unique
and compelling advantages.
Industry Leading Multimedia Authoring Tool: Macromedia
Director Shockwave Studio
The Macromedia Director Shockwave Studio is the standard
for creating powerful multimedia on the Web. With Director,
developers can create compelling experiences that combine
the production values and visceral appeal of television with
the immediacy of the Internet. The Director Shockwave Studio
includes new features that allow you to create a wide range
of community applications. The following are just a few examples.
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Ability for multiple users
to interact within any Shockwave content. |
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Ability to manage connections
and communication in real time. |
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Support of peer-to-peer
communications. |
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New Lingo for all messaging
in real time. |
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New multiuser drag-and-drop
behaviors for easy chat creation. |
Ubiquitous Client for Web Deployment: Adobe Shockwave Player
Users view your Shockwave multiuser content with Adobe Shockwave Player. Shockwave Player is the standard Web technology
used to deliver interactive, entertaining Web experiences.
Over 165 million Web users already have Shockwave Player installed.
That means that the majority of Web users can immediately
view your multiuser content. Those who don't have Shockwave
Player already installed can easily download it from macromedia.com.
In fact, over 100,000 people successfully download Shockwave
Player from Macromedia's Web site everyday. Further, Shockwave
Player is pre-installed with all MacOS and Windows 98 systems
and it comes on most browser CDs. With Shockwave Player, visitors
to your Web sites can immediately view all of the native Director
types that you employ in your Shockwave multiuser content
including animation, sound, graphics, and text.
Cross Platform: Server, Authoring and Playback
All of the components of this solution (client, authoring,
server) are cross-platform. This is a tremendous advance over
other multiuser solutions, especially since most playback
clients available today to deploy multiuser content are for
PC only. Shockwave Player is a Web standard, widely deployed
on both Mac and PC, so you can reach the widest possible audience
with your content. In addition, on the server side, Windows
95, Windows 98, Windows NT, and Macintosh PPC servers are
supported.
Pricing and Availability
With any copy of Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio, developers
can deploy applications that support up to 2,000 simultaneous
users. Macromedia has also partnered with HearMe to extend
the reach of multiuser Shockwave applications to hundreds
of thousands of users using HearMe's POP.X Server.
About Shockwave
More than 165 million Web users can immediately view Shockwave
content. Macromedia Flash and Shockwave have a stronger online
presence than any other streaming video and media formats
online, according to an October 1999 survey conducted by NPD
Online Research, the parent company of Media Metrix. Adobe Shockwave and Flash Players are free Web players that work
together to bring you the best content on the web. Each has
a distinct purpose. Macromedia Flash Player delivers low-bandwidth,
high-impact Web sites and user interfaces. Adobe Shockwave Player delivers interactive multimedia product demos, e-merchandising
applications, and rich-media multiuser games. Shockwave content
runs on both Macintosh and Windows platforms, which reduces
development time and immediately extends the reach of interactive
content. Macromedia continues to expand the ubiquity of the
Shockwave and Flash Players by making them free to download
and redistribute on CD-ROMs and intranets. Developers who
want more information about distributing the Shockwave and
Flash Players should review our licensing information.
About Macromedia Director Shockwave Studio
Macromedia Director is the market-leading multimedia solution
for creating engaging, multimedia corporate presentations,
e-merchandising applications and interactive entertainment.
Director combines graphics, sound, animation, text, video,
and multiuser technology with rich interactivity to create
content that is easy to deploy as Shockwave content for the
Web, or as multimedia for CD-ROM and DVD-ROM.
About Macromedia
Macromedia is passionate about what the Web can be. Its
award-winning products empower designers and developers to
efficiently create and deliver the most engaging experiences
on the Web, and enable innovative Internet business solutions.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Macromedia (NASDAQ: MACR)
has more than 1,700 employees worldwide.
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