AllThingsD » Adobe

App Makes Readers' Thoughts an Open Book

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:26:09 +0000

Even the shyest airplane passengers are hard-pressed to remain mum when a seatmate pulls out a book with a familiar cover. Now, thanks to the popularity of e-books, these once visible book covers are shrouded in the nondescript cases of Kindles, Nooks and iPads.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I tried Subtext, a free iPad app designed to enable and encourage conversations based on e-books—not necessarily with fellow plane passengers, but among readers within digital books themselves. A revamped version of Subtext, originally released in October, is available in Apple’s App Store Tuesday.

On the Subtext iPad app, a reader’s profile page, with her shelf of books.

Like Amazon’s Kindle already does, Subtext gives anyone who reads an e-book the ability to make notes, highlight passages and to keep private or share those notes or highlights with other users. But this app goes much further: It also lets readers post questions, polls, quizzes or even Web links that are noted in the margins of the book. Other users respond to these posts and start mini book discussions that can continue indefinitely. Subtext content can be kept private, made visible to all users or made visible only to a user’s friends. Along with comments from fellow readers, Subtext users can see comments marked in blue that are made by a book’s author or other experts.

Unfortunately, Subtext smacks of immaturity when compared with other reading apps like Amazon’s Kindle app and Barnes & Noble’s Nook app. While those work on several devices and operating systems, Subtext works only on Apple’s iPad. It only runs with books from Google Books or those in Adobe’s ePub format, and the process for getting the latter—emailing the book to oneself or downloading the file from a website to the iPad—is clumsy and not intuitive. Co-founder Rachel Thomas said Subtext is actively developing for other platforms.

Another issue is that Subtext is only as good as its users’ involvement. The more people comment and create discussions, the more interesting it will be for others. For this to happen, the app has to lure readers away from the devices and apps they’re already comfortable with, like the Kindle or Nook, or the Kindle, Nook and Apple iBooks apps on the iPad.

I got an early look at the new version of Subtext and found it more self-explanatory than its predecessor. I signed in using my Google account, though users can sign in using a Facebook account or explore the app as a guest. By signing into my Google Account, my shelves were populated with the Google e-books I already purchased. Previews of books give users a sense of what the app does.

A Discussions section neatly organizes all social interactions about books in one place.

Users can tap on any book cover to see all content and social information related to that book. Likewise, tapping on any user profile image lets you visit that person’s shelf. A Featured Shelves section suggests different categories of books like Critics Picks 2011 and 2011′s Most Social Books.

As I used Subtext for the first time, small hint windows floated onto the iPad screen at certain points to demonstrate how things worked. One encouraged me to tap and hold my finger on the screen at a favorite book passage to see options for adding notes to that passage. I tried this a few times, including while reading a line in Tina Fey’s “Bossypants” about working moms with kids. I highlighted this passage and posed a question to all Subtext users: How many kids does Tina Fey have? Someone, who I later found out was Subtext’s co-founder Andrew Goldman, answered about an hour later, saying Ms. Fey has two daughters—a 6-year-old and a 6-month-old.

The Discussions section of the app neatly organizes all social interactions in one place, so people don’t have to skip back through books to see the continued conversations surrounding a question.

I like the way Subtext subtly notifies readers that notes exist: by showing a tiny thumbnail image of the user who posted the note in the margin of a book. Tapping on that image opens the note. I commented on some existing discussions by tapping the Reply button.

I created a note for one book passage using a related Web link, and the steps for doing this were clear and understandable. I kept this visible only to myself; other times, I made notes about passages and shared them only with my friends who I could invite to use Subtext via Facebook or email.

But what’s to stop someone from posting something inaccurate or abusive? Users can flag any note as inappropriate or as a spoiler, and the note is reviewed by the company. Users can vote on others’ comments, and over time, comments with more votes will be more broadly distributed.

As of now, authors and experts have enhanced just 18 books in Subtext, though users have left thousands of notes across books. The few books enhanced by authors or experts were fun to read. Steven Levy remarked on a line in his book, “In the Plex,” that described his travels from San Francisco to Tokyo, Beijing, Bangalore and Tel Aviv: “Newsweek paid for my trip, shelling out over $10,000 for my expenses. Kind of ironic because a couple of years later, Newsweek itself sold for $1.”

Confirmed: Adobe's Old Ad Boss Is Apple's New iAd Boss

Peter Kafka — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:11:11 +0000

Apple has hired Adobe executive Todd Teresi to run iAd, the Apple advertising initiative launched in 2010.

Teresi will report to media boss Eddy Cue, according to sources familiar with the hire. He fills a slot last occupied by Andy Miller, who sold his Quattro mobile ad company to Apple two years ago and left last summer. Bloomberg first reported Teresi’s move this afternoon.

Quattro formed the core of iAd, which Apple has used to tackle the mobile ads market dominated by Google. But advertisers have been slow to warm to the program, and Apple has been trying to retool its approach, by lowering advertiser spending requirements and offering more flexibility in implementation.

At Adobe, Teresi had helped steer the publishing company through a series of advertising acquisitions, including Efficient Frontier, Demdex and Auditude. Prior to that he had been at Quantcast and Yahoo.

In Memoriam: Tech Products We Lost Too Soon

Lauren Goode — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:30:54 +0000

The year is nearing its end, and while 2012 is expected to be increasingly cloud-y, voice-controlled and filled with more mobile madness, this seems like an appropriate moment to look back and remember those that have gone to the tech-product graveyard in 2011.

The Flip Camera
San Jose, Calif. — The Cisco Flip, a beloved handheld video recorder, was killed on April 12, 2011. Its untimely death was a result of the realignment of Cisco’s consumer electronics business.

Born in May 2006 as the Pure Digital Point & Shoot, the pocket camera went through many evolutions in its lifetime, later becoming the Flip Ultra and spawning the Flip Mino and Flip MinoHD. It found a new home in 2009, when it was acquired by Cisco for $590 million. The Flip was known as the life of the party at birthday and wedding celebrations, and will be remembered for its simplistic design and pop-out USB arm. “People literally flipped for the Flip when it first came out,” a friend of its parents, Pure Digital, said. It is survived by a number of boiled-down point-and-shoots and countless smartphone cameras, as well as video-sharing apps with annoyingly cute names like “Viddy.”

Its distant cousin, the Kodak Zi8, also went missing from the Kodak store earlier this year.

Guitar Hero
Santa Monica, Calif. — For Guitar Hero, Feb. 9, 2011, was the day the music died. The videogame franchise was killed when Activision announced during its fourth-quarter earnings call that it was shuttering the business unit dedicated to Guitar Hero.

The popular game was born in 2005 to Red Octane and Harmonix, and was distributed by Activision. Later iterations of Guitar Hero, which were developed by Neversoft, had band-specific titles and also incorporated more instrumental props, so fans could play drums or sing as well as play guitar.

But Guitar Hero sales fell off, and the game was eventually overshadowed by its record-breaking Activision siblings, the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft series. Revenues of Guitar Hero fell from $1.7 billion in 2008 to about $300 million in 2010.

Guitar Hero will be remembered for its love of music, with Aerosmith, Metallica and Van Halen among its favorite artists, and for creating living-room rock arenas for millions of users.

Guitar Hero is survived by Rock Band, Rocksmith, Rock Revolution and likely many other console and mobile games starting with “Rock” that we’re not aware of or haven’t been invented yet.

HP TouchPad
Palo Alto, Calif. — That flame which doth burn brightest often burns out quickly, or something like that.

The HP TouchPad was effectively killed on Aug. 18, 2011, at the young age of just 49 (that’s days). Prior to its demise, the TouchPad was praised for its bright 9.7-inch display, Beats audio and mostly for the fact that it ran HP’s intuitive webOS mobile operating system, though the tablet ultimately saw disappointing sales during its short life.

Hewlett-Packard, its maker, said webOS devices had not gained enough traction in the marketplace with consumers, and couldn’t justify continuing to produce hardware like the TouchPad around it.

HP’s new CEO, Meg Whitman, said later on, “I think we’ve got to walk before we run here.” The TouchPad is survived by a newly open source webOS system and a cult of rabid fans, as evidenced by its post-mortem fire sales. It joins the Microsoft Kin phone in a special Afterlife for Tech Products Less Than 50 Days Old, while its operating system remains in a state of purgatory.

Dell Streak Tablets and Mini 10 Netbook
Round Rock, Texas — The streak was not a long one.

Dell’s Streak 5 tablet, which was originally demoed at D8 in 2010, disappeared from store shelves in mid-August of this year. Dell hardly had time to recover from the loss before its sibling, the Dell Streak 7, was also discontinued.

Shortly after the loss of the Streak tablet, tragedy again struck the Dell family, when Dell confirmed it would no longer make consumer netbooks, feeling the pressure of tablets as well as an emerging shift toward thin, light “ultrabooks” in the laptop category. The Dell Mini 10 was known for being small, as netbooks are, and for being that laptop you knew you could always fit on the seatback tray on an airplane.

Apple MobileMe
Cupertino, Calif. — June 6, 2011, was Steve Jobs’s last appearance at an Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. It was also the day MobileMe effectively went away, with Jobs saying the $99 dollar service wasn’t Apple’s “finest hour.”

MobileMe launched at WWDC in July of 2008, and was meant to sync calendars, emails, bookmarks and photo galleries. For individual accounts, it came with 20 gigabytes of online storage and 200GB of monthly data transfer.

While great in theory, our friend MobileMe was not without flaws. In fact, AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg said, in his review of the service, that MobileMe was “far too flawed to be reliable.”

Apple’s Internet-based sync services since 2000 have evolved, but have never truly gone away: Like an actual ghost, we know they’re there, and we see glimpses of how they work, but they still elude many people. MobileMe, in its earliest form, was iTools, and later on, the subscription service .Mac. Even now, we’re not entirely sure whether MobileMe was killed or simply reincarnated as something new — in this case, iCloud.

Adobe Flash on Mobile
San Jose, Calif. — This is the way mobile Flash ends: Not with a bang, but a whimper.

On Nov. 9, Adobe said it would no longer be developing Flash, its platform for interactive and rich media content, for mobile devices.

Macromedia Flash was born in 1997, the spawn of FutureWave’s FutureSplash Animator. Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005, thus becoming Adobe Flash.
As smartphone and tablet wars heated up in recent years, Flash support became one of the features that iPad competitors — mainly Google Android devices — touted to set themselves apart from Apple’s mobile products.

The tech world has contemplated what this could all mean for the future of Flash. As AllThingsD’s Ina Fried wrote, Flash’s death on mobile was seen as a vindication for the late Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products. Could Jobs once again have seen the future? Flash is not a completely dead standard yet, but with developers increasingly adopting HTML5 as the new standard for Web language, it’s unclear what exactly will become of Flash.

Google Buzz
Mountain View, Calif. — A standard housecleaning session turned fatal this past October when Google pulled the plug on its social networking effort. Google Buzz, the predecessor to Google+, aimed to create a social network through Gmail.

Social and gregarious by nature, Google Buzz was born in February of 2010. Its early life was filled with strife, as users struggled to grasp the real-time social interactions that were occurring within email chains, and real privacy concerns emerged.

Despite its short life span, the memory of Google Buzz surely remains, as the search giant eventually had to settle with the FTC over privacy violations and is now committed to 20 years of privacy audits.

Memories, indeed.

Google Buzz is survived by Google+, and follows Friendster and Myspace to the social graveyard, although technically those still exist.

Readers, what do you think was the greatest tech product loss in 2011?

Adobe Adds Another $400 Million to Its Ad Business Shopping Spree

Peter Kafka — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:35:31 +0000

Last month, Adobe said it was buying search marketing firm Efficient Frontier, but didn’t disclose a purchase price. Yesterday, it came clean: The deal will end up costing around $400 million.

That brings the price tag for Adobe’s two-year ad business shopping spree to $2.4 billion. The bulk of that comes from Adobe’s 2009 acquisition of Omniture for $1.8 billion; it has also recently picked up Auditude and Demdex.

Adobe’s appetite for ad technology has been good news for a handful of investors who have been betting on the sector. In the case of Efficient Frontier, the deal is a big win for Mitsui & Co., Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures, who put less than $15 million into the start-up.

But while lots of VC cash has gone into ad tech in the past few years, there haven’t been a ton of big exits.

Beyond Adobe, the only other active buyer has been Google. And industry executives say that some ad tech firms looking for more funding are having trouble getting the dollars they want.

That Ad Slowdown Hasn't Hit Google

Peter Kafka — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:03:02 +0000

It’s still all anecdotal, but we continue to hear that the last few months of this year have not been kind to people who sell ads for a living — including people who sell digital ads.

But here’s the counterpoint: Search — which means Google — appears to be doing just fine.

Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney has been checking with search marketers, who tell him that Q4 looks a whole lot like the rest of 2011, except maybe a bit better: “Our panel is tracking U.S. Search spend to be up between 15% and 27% Y/Y, rates that are largely in-line with or faster than Q1-Q3 trends.”

Mahaney notes that Efficient Frontier, the search marketer Adobe plans on buying, says its Q4 numbers show a “slight deceleration” from the rest of the year. But compared to the sour faces I’ve seen from some ad guys in recent weeks, that’s fine.

Also of note: Mahaney says that mobile advertising, which has generated lots of hype but not that many dollars, may finally be here, at least when it comes to search. There’s a “a clear consensus that Mobile Search spend is becoming material,” he writes, and will account for 10 percent or more of many search buyers’ spend.

Adobe Makes Another Ad Move, Buys Search Marketer Efficient Frontier

Peter Kafka — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:53:27 +0000

Do you have an advertising business you’d like to sell? Adobe would like to talk to you.

The digital publishing company just announced yet another advertising acquisition: It has picked up Efficient Frontier, the company that’s best known for its search marketing business, but which is trying to expand into other ad buying/consulting fields, like social.

Adobe didn’t disclose a purchase price, but this one sounds like it will be material. The $4 billion-plus (revenue) company said it would provide “additional information regarding the potential financial impact to Adobe” once the deal closes, most likely in the first quarter of next year.

This is the fourth advertising acquisition Adobe has made in the past few years, following its purchases of Omniture, Demdex and, most recently, Auditude.

Earlier this year, Efficient Frontier picked up social marketing start-up Context Optional for $50 million. The move was supposed to help it branch out beyond its core business — helping marketers navigate Google and other search engines.

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/iadams)

Adobe: Flash Support for Android 4.0 Coming by Year's End

Ina Fried — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:38:28 +0000

Adobe isn’t planning to do much more work on its Flash browser plug-in for mobile devices, but it said Monday it will rectify the fact that its player app doesn’t work with Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android.

In a statement to AllThingsD, the company said that an update — the last major refresh planned for the Flash plug-in — is on its way, and should be out this year.

“Yes, Adobe will release one more version of the Flash Player for mobile browsing, which will provide support for Android 4.0, and one more release of the Flash Linux Porting Kit — both expected to be released before the end of this year,” Adobe said. “After that time, Adobe will continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates.”

In the meantime, though, that means the Galaxy Nexus can’t run Flash content.

“As we previously communicated in a blog post, devices and software updates from our partners which introduce new technologies are being developed on varied schedules that are different from our own, which means that the Adobe runtimes may not always be optimized or supported on devices until a subsequent release,” Adobe senior director Greg DeMichillie said in a statement. “We will provide a minor update to the runtimes to support the Galaxy Nexus in December.”

Adobe had said it planned to release one more update for the Flash Player earlier this month, when it announced that it was halting development on the project in favor of working with HTML5 and helping mobile developers create native apps using Adobe AIR.

Adobe Brings Mobile Photoshop, Other Apps to Android Tablets

Ina Fried — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:00:10 +0000

Adobe may be giving up on the Flash plug-in for Android browsers, but it is still interested in other areas of Google’s mobile operating system.

The software company is announcing this week the arrival of Photoshop Touch, an Android tablet version of its flagship Photoshop product. It’s not the full Photoshop, but does include a wide range of editing tools more typically found on desktop programs.

The company first hinted it was heading in this direction back in March, with a demonstration at Photoshop World in Orlando.

Adobe is actually introducing six apps for Android tablets this week, each selling for about $10, but if you aren’t a creative professional, the others likely won’t interest you. They have to do with things such as picking colors, creating client presentations and doing a quick sketch.

The move is also a modest win for Google and the tablet makers, which have struggled to get apps that are specifically designed for tablets.

Only one of the apps — the sketching program called Ideas — is available for Apple devices. Adobe does plan to bring all of the other apps to Apple’s iOS, but didn’t have any details, other than to expect an announcement in the first quarter of next year.

And that brings up one of the rubs with Adobe’s current mobile strategy. Although the company is clearly toying with different ways to extend creativity from computers to phones and tablets, its strategy is somewhat disjointed.

The company’s earliest mobile efforts included Photoshop Express, a basic photo editing tool that debuted first for the iPhone, and later for the iPad and Android.

Adobe has also offered a couple of products that aim to use a tablet in conjunction with a desktop computer to augment the creative process.

More recently, it introduced Carousel, a subscription service that synchronizes photos across devices. For now, though, Carousel only shares photos across Macs and iOS devices.

Flash's Swan Song (Comic)

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:31:37 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site.

HTML5: A Look Behind the Technology Changing the Web

Don Clark — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:00:40 +0000

A year and a half after Steve Jobs endorsed it in an unusual essay, a set of programming techniques called HTML5 is rapidly winning over the Web.

The technology allows Internet browsers to display jazzed-up images and effects that react to users’ actions, delivering game-like interactivity without installing additional software. Developers can use HTML5 to get their creations on a variety of smartphones, tablets and PCs without tailoring apps for specific hardware or the online stores that have become gatekeepers to mobile commerce.

That promise—and the lure of Apple Inc. devices in particular—is sweeping aside alternative technologies. In the latest development, Adobe Systems Inc. said Wednesday it will pull back on pushing the rival Flash format opposed by Mr. Jobs for mobile devices.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

How Will Jettisoning Mobile Flash Affect Adobe?

John Paczkowski — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:15:23 +0000

Adobe’s decision to abandon Flash for mobile devices in favor of HTML5 is big news. But what does it really mean for the software company’s business?

Probably not all that much. For now, at least.

First, from a financial perspective, the issue is not dire. Adobe doesn’t break out Flash in its earnings reports. But according to a 2010 estimate by Robert W. Baird & Co., Flash generates less than 10 percent of Adobe’s total revenue. And some believe the percentage is quite a bit lower than that — less than 5 percent.

So, from a financial perspective, Flash was never worth all that much to the company’s bottom line.

That said, Flash’s real value has always been as a sort of gateway drug for Adobe’s other software tools. And now that the company has officially pivoted to Flash successor HTML5 with the launch of its Adobe Edge design tool, Flash will inevitably become worth even less to it.

“I don’t see this act alone as having a significant financial impact on them,” IDC analyst Al Hilwa told AllThingsD. “The key for them is to address HTML5 effectively in their tool lineup. They have started doing that and are, in fact, an early leader in this relatively nascent market.”

Forrester analyst Mike Gualtieri agreed. “Adobe made the right decision in dumping Flash for mobile,” he said. “Adobe is about selling creative and development tools, so jettisoning Flash for mobile will allow them to focus on the tools for mobile development.”

Still, while it is not a huge part of its revenue, Adobe did own Flash, and those that wanted to support it were compelled to use the company’s tools.

Plus: Even though HTML5 may be a bigger pie, as they say, there will be a lot more companies looking to take a bite of it.

The looming question, then, is whether Adobe will be able to maintain its share of the broader development tools business, in a world in which it doesn’t have Flash to support it.

Beyond this, there are a few other business issues to consider, as well. Foremost among them is what it means for Adobe to begin to step away from the platform for which it is arguably best known.

And there’s simply no good way to spin that. Flash is in decline, and Adobe is wise to be moving on, first with its mobile browser offering.

This makes it a big strategic loss for the company. Regardless of what you think of Flash as a technology, it has been an important brand for Adobe, particularly in the consumer arena. Phasing it out entails some loss of visibility for the company.

And, make no mistake, it is phasing Flash out. The company’s abandonment of mobile Flash, and its switch to HTML5, almost certainly heralds a migration away from the desktop version of Flash, as well. Part of Adobe’s sales pitch to developers today was a promise to help developers move off it when the time is right.

“We will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve, so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged,” Adobe said in a statement.

In other words: We’re improving Flash to make it easier for you to stop using it.

Which brings us to the strategic missteps leading up to Adobe’s announcement today, in particular the company’s high-profile public relations battle with Apple.

Scrapping mobile Flash is a humiliating concession to Cupertino, which has been urging the recalcitrant Adobe to do just that for years now.

As the late Steve Jobs famously said in his “Thoughts on Flash” essay, “Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.”

Adobe dismissed that suggestion with a series of embarrassing tough-love, full-page, pro-Flash advertisements in the business sections of a number of major newspapers.

Now, a year and a half later, it’s heeding Jobs’s advice.

What does that say about Adobe’s leadership? What’s been going on over there?

Evidently, a lot of waffling.

But now that it’s over, Adobe says it is ready to “aggressively contribute to HTML5.” Good thing, too. The company is already late to the game, and it’s got a lot of work to do if it hopes to advance the standard for the broader industry.

PREVIOUSLY:

So Now What Will iPad Rivals Say in Their Commercials?

Horse Flash: Apple’s Steve Jobs on Adobe Vendetta in 2010 at D8 (Video)

Adobe Admits It Is Saying Buh-Bye to Flash for Mobile Devices

Gone in a Flash? Adobe Halting Development on Mobile Version of Its Plug-In

Adobe Co-Founder: We Never Abandoned Apple, but Apple Is Abandoning Us

Adobe to Apple: You Wanna Hug It Out? Let’s Hug It Out!

Good Luck With That Alleged Antitrust Complaint Against Apple, Adobe…

Adobe CTO: Flash on iPhone Doesn’t Suck and Apple Knows It

A Possible Apple Antitrust Inquiry? Nothing to See Here…

Microsoft on Flash: What Steve Said

Adobe: We’re Done With You Too, Apple

Apple to Adobe: I Know You Are, but What Am I?

So Much for Flash on the iPhone

Adobe: Flash for Mac Is Getting Better–Really!

Adobe Scrapping Flash for TV, Too‎

John Paczkowski — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:17:24 +0000

Looks like mobile Flash isn’t the only version of the platform Adobe has soured on. The company seems to have given up on its effort to bring Flash to the television, as well.

With its decision to end development of mobile Flash, Adobe is also abandoning its goal of establishing the platform as the common runtime software on connected TVs and set-top boxes.

“Adobe will continue to support existing licensees who are planning on supporting Flash Player for Web browsing on digital home devices and are using the Flash Player Porting Kit to do so,” the company said in a statement given to GigaOm. “However we believe the right approach to deliver content on televisions is through applications, not a Web browsing experience, and we will continue to encourage the device and content publishing community down that path.”

We believe the right approach to deliver content on televisions is through applications, not a Web browsing experience.

What does that mean for Google TV, “which includes Flash Player 10.1 integrated directly into the Google Chrome browser delivering the full Web to consumers on their television sets”?

Who cares? Know anyone with a Google TV who actually uses it?

Didn’t think so.

So, Adobe — which once hoped to make Flash the de facto multimedia platform on PCs, mobile devices and TVs — no longer sees that as a viable strategy. Its new tack: Push developers to create native apps for connected TVs using the AIR framework.

Adobe's Exit Offers Opportunities For Those Who Stream Flash Remotely

Ina Fried — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:04:48 +0000

Although the move to stop developing mobile versions of Flash may be a headache for those making Android tablets, it could be a boon for a small number of companies that have alternative means for delivering Flash content onto portable devices.

One such company is iSwifter, which makes a product for the iPad that allows Flash games and video to remotely run on a proxy server and then be sent down to the mobile device. Until now, iSwifter has focused its product in the market on Apple’s iOS, but it has had an Android version nearly ready for months.

“Our target market literally just doubled,” iSwifter founder Rajat Gupta said in an interview on Wednesday. “We had actually predicted this day now for over a year.”

Others, such as Skyfire, have already offered Flash-streaming options for Android, though the appeal will clearly grow as Adobe stops updating Flash for Android and other mobile devices.

Gupta said that iSwifter’s Android product should be in the market by next month, focusing initially on tablets such as the Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and more traditional Android tablets, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab.

Gupta said that his company had talked to Adobe for some time about the need to move to a solution more like iSwifter’s.

“They have a fundamentally flawed architecture for mobile,” Gupta said. “Steve Jobs pointed it out but they didn’t listen.”

The company already has close to a million downloads of its iPad app, Gupta said, with several hundred thousand people actively using it to play Facebook games and other content that doesn’t otherwise work on the iPad. Gupta said that the company expects revenue in excess of $10 million this year and is profitable. It now has 16 employees, up from five back in May.

Adobe’s move should only accelerate its growth, Gupta said.

“We have been waiting for this time when we can step in and launch it,” he said.

[ See post to watch video ]

So Now What Will iPad Rivals Say in Their Commercials?

Ina Fried — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:01:46 +0000

There are tons of implications to Adobe dropping future mobile development of the Flash plug-in, but one of the most immediate is for those whose job it is to market and sell Android tablets.

Flash support has been one of the key advantages that aspiring iPad competitors have used to tout their devices.

On the phone side, Android makers can brag about the ability to run on faster networks, larger screen sizes, keyboards and all manner of other differences from Apple’s lone iPhone model.

With tablets, though, Flash compatibility (poor performance notwithstanding) had been a key selling point for those looking to take on the iPad. It was a major component in ads from Toshiba, Research In Motion, Motorola and others looking to grab a piece of the tablet market.

Flash support isn’t immediately going away for devices that already have it, but it clearly has lost its luster as a selling point.

So where does that leave the iPad rivals? Both Android and RIM’s PlayBook still have a weak story when it comes to apps. And, sure, tablets can come in various screen sizes, something Samsung has proven by offering the Galaxy Tab in 7-, 8.9- and 10-inch varieties. But that clearly isn’t enough alone to stand out from the iPad, as evidenced by the fact that Apple’s tablet continues to dominate the category.

A Google representative could not immediately be reached for comment. RIM, for its part, says it has licensed Adobe’s source code and plans to continue supporting Flash on the PlayBook.

“As an Adobe source code licensee, we will continue to work on and release our own implementations. RIM remains committed to delivering an uncompromised Web browsing experience to our customers, including native support for Adobe Flash Player on our BlackBerry PlayBook tablet (similar to a desktop PC browser), as well as HTML5 support on both our BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook browsers,” RIM said in a statement to AllThingsD. “In fact, we are pleased that Adobe will focus more efforts on the opportunities that HTML5 presents for our developers, and shares our commitment to HTML5 as we discussed together at DevCon Americas.”

Those are strong words of support, but if Adobe stops its efforts to develop and optimize Flash for mobile devices, RIM may find it has to do a lot of work to follow through on such a promise.

As for the Android camp, it means getting more apps more quickly — something already top of mind for Google, which has been running a series of developer camps aimed specifically at spurring tablet app development.

Adobe Admits It Is Saying Buh-Bye to Flash for Mobile Devices

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:15:30 +0000

In a blog post by one of its execs, titled “Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5,” Adobe said what had already been reported: That it would no longer be developing its well-known Flash for mobile devices.

Here’s the key graph:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.”

Last night, reports surfaced that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Now, Adobe will focus its PC Web browser business on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Turns out Jobs was prescient, as usual.

Here is the full version of the Adobe blog:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

POSTED BY DANNY WINOKUR, VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, INTERACTIVE DEVELOPMENT AT ADOBE ON NOVEMBER 9, 2011 5:59 AM IN BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS, CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS, DEVELOPERS, VIDEO

Adobe is all about enabling designers and developers to create the most expressive content possible, regardless of platform or technology. For more than a decade, Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Over the past two years, we’ve delivered Flash Player for mobile browsers and brought the full expressiveness of the web to many mobile devices.

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video. Flash Player 11 for PC browsers just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that our Flash tooling has to offer, to reach more than a billion PCs through their browsers and to package native apps with AIR that run on hundreds of millions of mobile devices through all the popular app stores, including the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon Appstore for Android and BlackBerry App World.

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash. Together they offer developers and content publishers great options for delivering compelling web and application experiences across PCs and devices. There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come!

Horse Flash: Apple's Steve Jobs on Adobe Vendetta in 2010 at D8 (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:30:29 +0000

At a 2010 onstage interview with Walt Mossberg and me at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference, the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs spent a lot of time — and with considerable passion — talking about his company’s decision to dump Adobe’s popular Flash technology in its iPhone and iPad devices.

While he insisted that he wasn’t out to crush Adobe — instead using the metaphor of “choosing what horses to ride” — Jobs explained that the software technology was buggy, no longer useful, and, therefore, needed to be put out to pasture.

“We try to pick things that are in their springs … sometimes you just have to pick the things that are the right things going forward,” said Jobs plainly. “Flash looks like a technology that had its day and is waning.” According to Jobs, HTML5 was the new colt to back.

As to the implications on Apple’s mobile devices if consumers did not agree with his choice, he noted that “it all works itself out,” adding that a new iPad was then selling every three seconds.

“People seem to be liking iPads,” said Jobs with his patented grin.

It’s an interesting video to watch now — along with this one on Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen talking about the issue a year later at D9 — because of reports that first surfaced last night, that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Adobe confirmed the move this morning, noting it will focus its PC Web browser business and on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Adobe now apparently agrees.

Here’s the video clip of Jobs talking trash about Flash:

[ See post to watch video ]

(And, here’s a video from a year later from D9 of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen talking about the same topic.)

The Fate of Flash on Mobile Devices: Here's the Adobe CEO Talking About It at D9

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:05:45 +0000

When Walt Mossberg interviewed Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in June at the ninth D: All Things Digital conference about the future — or lack thereof — of Flash, and about the software company’s ugly fight with Apple over not supporting the technology on its mobile devices, Narayen declared the battle over.

“It’s an argument that the press likes to continue bringing up,” said Narayen, noting that all was fine with its development for Google Android and Research In Motion mobile offerings.

But now, as Ina Fried writes: “Adobe is apparently ready to throw in the towel when it comes to getting Flash to run on mobile devices.”

As it seems to have turned out, even Adobe now might be agreeing with the late Apple icon Steve Jobs on the issue.

Until we have more clarity on the plans, here’s Narayen on the topic at D9:

[ See post to watch video ]

(And, to even out the score, here’s a video of Jobs talking about Flash at D8 a year before.)

More Money for Mobile Ads: Medialets Raises Another $8.4 Million

Peter Kafka — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:15:40 +0000

Mobile ads are a smallish business with very big growth projections, which is why investors are happy to pour money into the industry. Today’s example: Mobile ad start-up Medialets has raised another $8.4 million, bringing the New York-based company’s total funding to $18 million over the last couple of years.

An SEC filing indicates that previous backers Foundry Group and DFJ Gotham have reinvested in the company. And CEO Eric Litman says he brought in new investors as well, but he won’t identify them.

He would offer up some basic metrics on his firm’s growth, though: Medialets now has 70 employees, who are working on mobile ad campaigns that average around $150,000 per buy. Most of that comes from “in-app” ads that run on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms, but there is increasing interest in mobile Web advertising as well, Litman says.

Speaking of that: What’s his take on Adobe’s move away from its Flash standard for mobile devices? “I think it’s an awesome opportunity for Adobe to make lots of money getting lots of people to upgrade their tools,” Litman says.

Is he being flip? Nope, he says — he figures that developers who have been building for Flash will simply move to Adobe’s upcoming Edge standard. “When Adobe comes out with new tools, and it’s a reasonable facsimile of what Flash used to do, all those same developers are going to go out and buy it.”

Here’s an example of what Medialets is selling — a Dunkin’ Donuts ad that ran on an EA Scrabble app for the iPhone:

Gone in a Flash? Adobe Halting Development on Mobile Version of Its Plug-In

Ina Fried — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 06:22:28 +0000

In a stunning move, Adobe is apparently ready to throw in the towel when it comes to getting Flash to run in mobile browsers.

According to a report Tuesday on ZDNet, the company is halting development on future mobile versions of Flash for Android and Research In Motion’s PlayBook, among other mobile operating systems.

“We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations,” ZDNet quotes Adobe as telling developers. “Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.”

Instead, Adobe will focus on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform, according to the report.

Adobe representatives were not immediately available for comment.

The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.

Although Adobe managed to get Flash running on Android devices, as well as the PlayBook, the performance was typically slow and inconsistent even on devices that supported it.

The move comes amid a broader restructuring at Adobe, which announced earlier on Tuesday that it was cutting 750 jobs and resorting its priorities.

Adobe didn’t specifically call out this move, though it did say it was increasing its investment in HTML5, and “focusing Flash resources on delivering the most advanced PC web experiences, including gaming and premium video, as well as mobile apps.”

Adobe Eliminates 750 Jobs in Restructuring

Arik Hesseldahl — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:58:29 +0000

Adobe Systems said it will cut about 750 jobs in North America and Europe as part of corporate restructuring. The company said it expects to take a restructuring charge of between $87 million to $94 million. As a result of the move, the company said it expects earnings per share to be in the range 30 cents to 38 cents a share, lower than its previously guided range of 41 to 50 cents. Adobe shares fell more than 7 percent in after-hours trading.

Adobe Moves Deeper Into the Ad Business

Peter Kafka — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 02:18:15 +0000

Adobe is the company that powers much of the digital publishing world, and it’s also the company behind Flash, the Web video standard. And it’s also the company that’s quietly positioning itself to become a major player in Web advertising.

Adobe isn’t beating the drum about its intentions, but it’s also quite clear about them: The company figures that it already has deep relationships with lots of Web publishers, and that the logical way to extend its business is to help them sell ads, too.

Monday night’s announcement that the company had purchased Auditude, a video ad-serving start-up, is the most recent not-very-subtle hint about where Adobe is going. People familiar with the transaction say Adobe spent around $120 million on the purchase.

That’s about double the reported price tag for Demdex, the “data management platform” Adobe bought in January. Adobe kicked off its advertising M&A plans back in 2009, when it dropped $1.8 billion on Omniture, the traffic tracker that dominates Web publishing.

And it’s a good bet that Adobe’s not done buying.

Last year, the company tried to buy Invite Media, a “demand side platform” that helps advertisers navigate big data exchanges, but lost that deal to Google. On a call this afternoon, Adobe executive Todd Teresi wouldn’t tell me that Adobe was interested in buying another DSP — there are plenty out there — but he did say that his company plans to either build or buy something that will give it the same capabilities.

And if Adobe would like to pick up any other pieces of the ad tech “stack” — the dizzying array of companies that try to insert themselves between advertisers and publishers — it has plenty of other options. And bankers willing to help.

[Image credit: Rafal Olechowski/Shutterstock.]

Exclusive: Like Marketing, Yahoo's Customer Advocacy Org Gets Sliced and Diced This Week

Kara Swisher — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 07:01:31 +0000

As happened last week to its centralized marketing division, Yahoo has broken up its Customer Advocacy organization, with its staff distributed to the various regions and the product unit of the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Customer Advocacy has been led by EVP Jeff Russakow, whose fate is now similarly unclear as it is for CMO Elisa Steele, whose division was diced up to the regions last week.

Both execs — who were hired by fired CEO Carol Bartz — plan to remain at the company until at least January, sources said.

Russakow, according to his Yahoo bio, has had “global responsibility for all of Yahoo!’s customer support functions, including audience, small business, ad operations, and search network quality.” He came to Yahoo from previous jobs at Symantec and Adobe.

Interim CEO Tim Morse sent a memo to employees about the change, noting Russakow is looking for his next opportunity, using much the same language as Steele used in her internal email.

The moves are interesting, given Yahoo’s current effort to find a new strategy, which includes a possible sale of all or parts of the company. But there is also a strong sentiment within the company to reorganize around strengthening its advertising platform and products.

I have a call into Yahoo PR for comment (but let’s assume I am accurate about this, shall we?).

More, obviously, to come.

eBay's Not Just a Retailer Anymore, It's a Tech Company

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:07:36 +0000

At the opening session at eBay’s developer conference this morning, the company known for its auctions business rolled out a completely new business not focused on consumers.

Leaning on a year of acquisitions, worth millions of dollars, it unveiled X.commerce, a platform aimed at developers, which can use it to help retailers bridge the gap from offline commerce to mobile, social and local commerce.

As part of it, it hosted a number of partners on stage, including Adobe and Facebook. Adobe will contribute Omniture’s analytics tools, and Facebook will be integrating the social network’s “open graph,” enabling consumers to interact with brands in new ways.

Here’s the liveblog from earlier:

eBay kicks off its developer conference today in San Francisco’s Moscone center, where more than 4,000 developers and merchants will be present to hear about X.commerce, the online retailer’s big foray into providing back-end tools for developers.

Yesterday, we got a glimpse of its plans, but will hear even more from eBay’s President and CEO John Donahoe, who will be joined on stage by Bill Ingram of Adobe and Katie Mitic of Facebook, who are both expected to announce partnerships with the major online retailer.

9:08 am: Time to get started. People are still leisurely taking their seats. We are in the same room that Apple’s WWDC conference was, but I can assure you there’s far less urgency here in finding a good seat.

9:11 am: Naveed Anwar, the head of community for X.commerce, has just taken the stage.

We learned a little bit yesterday about X.commerce, but essentially eBay is hoping to turn into a tech company and provide the necessary tools to merchants and retailers to expand from physical to mobile and social channels.

There’s going to be a lot of talk about how retailers need help in getting ahead.

Anwar says there’s already 850,000 developers in the ecosystem today.

We are here today because Donahoe has been a champion of developers since he became CEO three years ago. He’s up next after a short video.

9:17 am: Donahoe is dressed down today in a button-up shirt and jeans to deliver this message:

I see an enormous acceleration in the pace of change and innovation. The more I reflect on it, I think it’s more than just that. I believe we are at an inflection point. … In particular, I’ll make a prediction: I believe we’ll see more change in the way consumers shop and pay in the next three years than we’ve seen in 15.

He continues, offline retail hasn’t changed that much, and then online commerce came around 15 years ago, but it’s a fairly distinct experience from offline retail.

That’s now changing because of the smartphone.

The lines between online and offline are blurring, and they are blurring faster than anyone could have imagined 12 months ago. What that is doing is expanding the opportunity for innovation.

We think e-commerce, which is 4 percent of offline retail, will double or triple. … By 2013, e-commerce will be a $10 trillion opportunity.

9:23 am: This year alone we’ll do $5 billion in retail on the eBay mobile app, and PayPal will do $3 billion in mobile payments this year.

He says, people now have a mall in their pocket, and expect shopping to come to them.

Donahoe says the pain points are being felt by retailers: I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with retail CEOs over the past 12 months that go something like this: We need to be multi-channel. We just figured out Google AdWords, and now we have to figure out things like Groupon and LivingSocial.

9:27 am: Here’s the eBay pitch for X.commerce: Donahoe says retailers are saying, “we need to figure out how to delight our customers, but we aren’t technology companies.”

EBay, the whole entire company’s mission, is to enable commerce. We want to enable merchants of all sizes to compete in this new environment and we will not compete with them.

Over the past year, we’ve been hard at work, and today, I’m excited to announce X.commerce. It is the world’s first open commerce ecosystem.

It’s intended to put together the full suite of services, so developers can drive innovation for merchants.

I feel this more than ever before, you will play an important role. I know that no one single company can provide all the solutions. Retail is a complex market, and they need different services by vertical and geography, and we need you to help with that.

Donahoe said this is the intention for X.commerce:

– We will build a full commerce stack, many of which will be acquired.

– We want it to be open. We’ll open up GSI, but Magento has been open since the beginning. The companies, including Milo, Red Laser and Where, they are open today. We are buying them and opening them up.

– We want you to be able to come to one place to get the platform and services that you need.

9:35 am: That was the high-level overview from Donahoe. Next up is Matthew Mengerink, the VP and General Manager of X.commerce.

If you haven’t picked up on it already, this is not a consumer-focused story. This is about eBay creating the unsexy stuff that runs in the background that will help consumers buy things on the Web or at the cash register.

9:37 am: Mengerink has a story to tell. He’s a father a five, and his daughter needs a fleece jacket. He’s in the store, and sending pictures to his daughter at home. Once he gets home, his daughter hates it. Classic, right?

Well, as a coder, he says he starts to envision how there could be better technologies to prevent that.

Now, he’s starting to talk about ecosystems and distribution. He says that what they are building is for both mom and pop, large retailers and small.

To prove it, here’s some demos, where they took real-life businesses over and conducted “extreme makeovers!”

9:43 am: In a video, we are introduced to Soccer Pro, a small family-owned retailer. They handed over the business to eBay to see if they can save their business.

This should be interesting.

The out-of-the-box X.commerce looks like this:

Carlos, the owner of Soccer Pro, comes out on stage with a thumbdrive, which stores all of his inventory.

The inventory is uploaded to Magento to create an online storefront, and now Soccer Pro has payments, tracking inventory and analytics.

Presto-chango, Soccer Pro has a live storefront!

That was fast.

9:47 am: The next step is to send inventory to eBay, so Soccer Pro has access to 100 million customers worldwide. The inventory is also automatically added to Milo, which will drive foot traffic to his physical store.

9:49 am: Next on stage is eBay’s first partner, Adobe. Bill Ingram, VP of product management, is on stage to explain that merchants need the power of analytics. It will be integrating Omniture into the Magento platform to inform merchants who are its customers and where are they coming from.

In a demonstration, Adobe shows how its tools will allow a retailer to see that email is outperforming affiliate channels, and that more of the marketing budget should be headed to email.

Once set up, these tools look easy enough for a regular person to understand, but they will need developers to set it up, and then tweak it as their businesses change in the future.

These are not tools for merchants, but for developers who are the ones working for the merchants and retailers.

9:56 am: That’s it for Adobe.

Now Sivan Metzger from Kenshoo is on stage to give us a peek into how more partners will be part of the platform. Retailers use Kenshoo to manage online advertising campaigns across Google, Facebook and other sites.

More partner demonstrations. eBay is partnering with Mazentop to help with international sales.

10:05 am: Central to the X.commerce platform is Magento, which eBay purchased four months ago. Magento’s co-founder Roy Rubin is now on stage to give a rundown.

EBay is now officially announcing PayPal Access, which we covered yesterday. PayPal provides an identity across all retailers on the Web, so that consumers don’t have to create a discrete log-in for each and every retailer they visit on the Web.

A big problem for online retailers, unless you are someone like Amazon, is that customers don’t have an account. Shopping cart abandonment is a big problem.

10:16 am: The first retailer makes it on the stage. Betsy Poirer, director of Digital Channels and Partnerships at Toys R Us, which is uploading its inventory onto eBay’s site in order to drive traffic to its stores.

Poirer said it has 800 plus stores in the U.S. and only one Web site, and that they are constantly looking for ways to reduce friction, so that it is easier for customers to come back.

In this case, she said it was really easy to use eBay, Milo, Red Laser, GSI because it is under one retailer.

10:23 am: Katie Mitic of Facebook finally makes it on stage to show what social commerce looks like. Mitic has just joined eBay’s board of directors.

Mitic is talking about the trials and tribulations of finding the perfect gift for her husband, but that her best gifts have been ones that have been recommended to her by a friend.

She said in the first wave of Internet adoption, people knew what they were looking for, like movie times, but that it was largely an unsatisfying experience.

“It’s not a surprise that the second phase of the Internet is different. Over 800 million people on Facebook are their real selves … You come to Facebook to learn about your friends.”

10:28 am: She said think about the last time you bought a car. You’ve researched it, and you’ve made the decision, but as soon as you post it on Facebook, someone said, accusingly, “You aren’t going to buy that loser car, are you?”

Your friends are driving real results.

Once American Eagle Outfitters added a like button to all of its items, customers who were referred to the store by a friend bought 57 percent more on average than someone who was not referred.

Mitic is now explaining Facebook’s new open graph, which means people don’t just have to like something, they can “read” a book, “listen” to music, “review” a product and recommend.

10:33 am: Mitic said that Magento developers will be able to use the Open Graph into their applications. They will also be coming to GSI developers, as well.

That means, even the small mom-and-pop store will be able to have their products show up on Facebook.

That’s it for Mitic.

The partnership between Facebook and eBay is pretty simple, and there doesn’t seem to be anything deeper with PayPal.

That’s it for eBay. It’s over. The short story is: eBay is also a tech company, not just a retailer.

Exclusive: Aviary Launches iPad Extensions Today, Keeps on Pivoting

Drake Martinet — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:00:55 +0000

In a continuation of its pivot away from Flash, Aviary, the New York-based multimedia editing start-up, is launching an iPad SDK and several new API extensions today.

If the Aviary name rings a bell, you might be more familiar with the company’s last round of products, which brought Adobe-style media editing programs into the Web browser via — you guessed it — loads of Flash.

Though the SDK products are a huge departure from the company’s direction over the last three years, CEO Avi Muchnick said: “The overall goal has been about democratizing creativity — that hasn’t changed.”

But just about everything else has.

Muchnick said Aviary would no longer be actively adding to their impressive Flash-based editing suite, which includes tools for images, vector graphics and audio, among other things.

Today, rather than hoping you’ll drop an image into their in-browser editor, Aviary makes tools for iOS and Android app developers.

Specifically, Aviary’s kit allows app makers to quickly add image editing features like cropping, red-eye removal and filters into their existing iPhone, Android, and, now, iPad apps.

And as of today’s launch, Aviary’s iPad interface will be available in the Pic Collage iPad app, as well as inside an update to Flickr Studio, a third-party iPad app built on Yahoo’s Flickr API.

The turn-key image editing tools have a look and feel somewhere between Apple’s iOS itself and the old Aviary Flash apps.

But Muchnick is eager to please the new app developer partners Aviary is hoping to win.

“One of my goals was to make this customizable to fit the partner,” he said. “[Partners] can change colors to match their app, or grab just the features they want.”

The new focus on partnerships seems to be moving along well enough.

Aviary claims that mobile and API users edited over a million images last month, and the company has brought on former Microsoft Office’s Paul Murphy to be their VP of business development.

Prior to its new direction, Aviary had raised about $11 million total, most recently from Spark Capital and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Aviary is yet another company abandoning Flash, after Apple and Steve Jobs declared it persona non grata for iOS devices.

The company has cut virtually all of its Flash developers and hired mobile developers to build up its SDK offerings.

Massive organizational and directional shifts are tough on any start-up, but Muchnick says that the new direction is really not that at all.

“Aviary doesn’t need to be a destination anymore,” he said. “We want to power all the photo creativity that happens online, and apps are how that will happen.”

Disney Set to Acquire Top Indian Game Developer Indiagames

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:21:46 +0000

Disney is close to finalizing the acquisition of Mumbai-based Indiagames, one of India’s leading developers and publishers of online and mobile games, according to sources.

The announcement could occur as soon as today. Disney declined to comment, and Indiagames founder and CEO Vishal Gondal did not respond to emails seeking comment.

In July, Disney bought Indian media conglomerate UTV, which owned a stake in Indiagames, so Disney’s acquisition would consist of purchasing the remaining shares it does not already own.

One source says the company is being valued at $80 million to $100 million, and that Disney already owns roughly half of the company, meaning it will end up spending as much as $50 million on the remaining stake. Other Indiagames shareholders include Adobe and Cisco Systems.

Indiagames, which was founded by Gondal in 1999, has more than 300 employees and has offices in Mumbai, Beijing, London and Los Angeles, according to its Web site. Some of its recent games include Cricket WorldCup Fever, Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, Godzilla — Monster Mayhem and Acorn Mafia, on the iPhone and iPad. It wasn’t until recently that it experimented with making social games on Facebook.

The acquisition by Disney could be following up on recent statements the company made to investors, saying it was interested in building a larger footprint in other countries, especially in India. Additionally, Disney identified mobile content as one of the key ways to distribute its brand.

A recent profile of Indiagames in Business Standard reported that the company recorded a profit of $400,000 on revenues of $11 million in its last fiscal year (that is converted from Rs 2 crore and Rs 54.5 crore, respectively).