R2Integrated

R2i Live (see http://live.r2integrated.com and http://oflive.r2integrated.com) is a real-time media portal that empowers users to experience an event through a blend of pictures, videos, audio, text, and Twitter messaging from your colleagues at the event. Several months ago, our engineers were brainstorming for an innovative, yet simple way to use technology to engage not only attendees of a particular event, but also those who cannot attend.

Made it to Vegas for DNN OpenForce 08. R2i has an exhibit and two speakers this year. Big difference from last year is the number of DNN vendors exhibiting (AppTheory, Data Springs, Active Modules, IowaDeveloperGroup, SeaBlink, Engage, and PowerDNN) plus DNN Corp. had a large booth. The first day started off with the DNN keynote from Shaun Walker. He had several major announcements:

Two of the giants in RIA, Microsoft and Adobe, had major releases over the past 2 weeks: Adobe Flash Player 10 and Microsoft Silverlight 2.  Microsoft is promoting some recent worldwide usage results stating that one in four consumers have installed Silverlight. Compare this to over 95% adoption of Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft still has a way to go.

Everyone is a now a photographer right? Between inexpensive digital cameras and mobile devices with GPS, your ability to take pictures anytime from anywhere has never been more prevalent. We are now able to annotate, crop, print and publish these with tools so they look highly professional. So what else do you need? Microsoft Live Labs has the answer: Photosynth.  Photosynth combines your images into a 3-D perspective, giving you impressive multi-dimensional and deep zoom views that will revolutionize the industry. Released as a BETA to high acclaim over a year ago for viewing, Photosynth was released...

Who is not watching the Olympics? Want to see real time videos and playback some great moments? NBC Olympics is the central media hub for all of the latest news, schedule, scores, images and video. The site is also a great way to see Adobe and Microsoft RIA technologies playing together in the sandbox!  

Not certain if it was the great lunch or the topic but the Digital Publishing Conference presentation was very well attended by over half the participants of the entire conference.  Judging by the feedback after the conference it was the topic that had people excited. Less than 10% of the audience knew about RIA and 5% were actually using the technology. 

During the presentation we threw out the old school PowerPoint method and introduced a Flex based RIA that gives the History, What is RIA, Uses and Considerations. Think of it as RIA 101.  Click here to view and play the presentation!

I’ll be speaking at the DPA Conference Wednesday, June 25^th in New York City. The topic is Rich Internet Applications (RIAs): Web Tools for Tomorrow's Richer, More Social Sites- What they are, how they work, and why you need them. We have killer examples and breakout the RIA world today and how it can be used for organizations. I’ll post the presentation after the show.

RIA’s have been popping regularly since the beginning of the year on more and more sites.  I have found that most RIA segment into the following categories: Rich Media, Product Selection, Visual Search, Widget Builders and Forms & Data Visualizers.  Since the release of Silverlight 2.0 (BETA) and Adobe Flex 3.0, designers and engineers have the professional grade tools and adoption of the technology.  The results are the increase in creative practical use of RIA .

Today, the RIA battle lines are drawn between Adobe and Microsoft, and they’re fighting for the loyalty of people like you, who will use their products to build websites, widgets, WEB 2.0 tools, and whatnot. In the Adobe camp is a legion of graphic designers, who are experts in tools like Adobe Flash. In the Microsoft camp are the developers with expertise in the .NET framework, developer tools, and server-based products. Both sides want to retain their loyal followers and while attracting defectors from the other camp.