Zoom-in Online

Adome Media Player, officially release on April 9, is really a great example of a beautifully implemented product in a field of well-adopted, well-liked products in direct competition, and the question is begged: do we really need another Media Player in the marketplace? Richard Harrington, Author, video podcaster, Final Cut Pro and Adobe software guru, takes a crack at answering this valid question that has quite honestly plagued me since NAB 2007, when I sat in Adobe's cush, refreshment-laden lecture/media hall and saw it first described and demoed to a crowd of some 300-400 people. I was taken aback by the sophistication of its product-specific skinability, and Flash-employing ease of use. Everyone in the room was amazed with the implementation, the look and feel, and the same question seemed to be on everyone's lips, later that night: "clearly it rocks, but why do we need it?"

Harrington met with Adobe's Dynamic Media Organization evangelist, Deejay Cooley recently, and this conversation yielded the following report: "The growth of video online, the dramatic growth of flash as the video delivery mechanism of choice… there was a ripe opportunity to take advantage of all these events around the industry,” said Cooley. “We started to build an RSS aggregator and quickly recognized that video was going to be a significant media online and so it became a video RSS aggregator. And so that’s really the birth of the Adobe Media Player.

Harrington's general feeling, and I agree with him whole-heartedly, is that "Adobe has been tracking the trend of TV moving online. Many users want their TV delivered to them on demand then having to wait for it or searching online. One way this demand for delivered content is RSS (also known as Really Simple Syndication), which allows for video content to be indexed, searched, and subscribed to. Many media outlets from news websites to iTunes use RSS to allow content to be delivered with convenience." It's really interesting how the writer's strike played into this trend as well. The fact that at the moment where this whole consumer-based new media movement was surging against the flood walls of corporate TV's evolution-defying assertion that TV on the plastic box in the living room—with 30-second-spots all over it—was still the correct, best, most fun, most advantageous, most NOW model of serving visual storytelling to a voracious audience. Putting it simply, Cooley adds, "Adobe Media Player is fundamentally a video RSS aggregator...RSS is akin to having a magazine delivered to your doorstep on a weekly basis."

I am continually surprised by the large number of people that I run into and chat with about technology—especially people in the media and entertainment sector— who have never heard of RSS. Most of those who have in fact heard the acronym, have, for a reason unknown to me, kept their understanding of what it is and what power and convenience it affords them and their audiences at arm's length. It really is quite easy to understand and is, I believe, the media/entertainment syndication vehicle par excellence of the day. AMP is geared around it, podcasting has bubbled up to the surface through the power of it, and daily blog reading of all stripes is propelled by it in almost every case site-able.

The article goes on to address the cost of creating content, the ways that AMP allows customizable monetization and measurement models for both content creators and consumers, the phenomenon of old media converging with new media, universal formats or lack thereof, and the new market waft capturing the noses of consumers. Kudos for the thorough examination, and also cheers to Adobe for sticking it out, in a space that already has players that are"fine." At the very least, check it out for yourself. It's free and easy to install, and can be your foray into the brave new world of AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) Rich Internet Applications. Come on in, the water's fine.
Get Adobe Media Player here and