Adobe Apollo as a brand-building platform
As the blog fates would have it, as soon as I finish a post on Adobe I stumble upon some information that would have made the post better. Although it was right there in my feeds, I missed this interview in which an Apollo product manager spells out some anticipated use cases for Apollo. Some of these are directly applicable to brands, and they certainly hint at the broader brand opportunities from an RIA platform.
Where Apollo and brands might meet
Via cut and paste here is a generalized list from the interview, in the product manager’s words.
- Media-oriented applications are going to be popular. Media companies will be able to create custom branded, desktop presences now. Imagine applications rich in video and audio with rich interfaces and a heavy focus on allowing users to contribute and manage their own media.
- I think we’ll see a lot of what I call “mini apps” initially. Lightweight utilities for performing specific tasks like note-taking, project tracking, task management, etc.
- Another market is casual games. The casual game industry is booming and they all use Flash. Now we can give them a way to install those games on the desktop and allow them to interact with the system in the form of saved data and desktop notifications. I think it could range from Texas hold-em style games to full Role Playing Games.
- Adobe is also looking to build applications on top of Apollo. I can’t give you any specific examples right now, but we have several teams within Adobe that are building software on top of Apollo as we’re developing it. They give us some great feedback and will also give us some great examples to showcase at Apollo’s launch later this year.
- Apollo will allow all kinds of companies to deliver software in a new way, and we think the ecosystem around it is going to be very large.
Apollo may open up the brand innovation gates
Apollo, don’t forget, is still in development, and won’t see the light of day until mid-2007, at the earliest. Still, if you want your brand to be among the first to benefit from Apollo’s (promised) powerful delivery system and features, now is the time to sign up for the beta. If Apollo can deliver on its potential, its impact on brands—and on brand innovation—can be substantial.
