25 Sep 2003 | Brad Hurley said...

I've never quite understood the appeal of these applications. I've used Sherlock maybe twice in the past five years, and while I do use Watson almost every day, I only use it as a primitive RSS reader to check Meerkat.

Unless Macromedia, Apple, or independent developers come up with some truly must-have app that's only avaliable through Central or Sherlock, I'd much rather stick with my familiar Web browser...I already know how to use that.

25 Sep 2003 | Darrel said...

I'm guessing this is just something to show off their new Flash Pro and the type of apps it can make?

I really wish they'd go back to making good software.

25 Sep 2003 | Todd Dominey said...

Could be splitting hairs here, but the real comparison should be with Watson since Apple (and Macromedia) were so *cough* inspired *cough* by the app.

25 Sep 2003 | Derek said...

I don't have a Mac, so I don't have access to Sherlock or Watson, but when I am around a friend's Mac, I love Watson. It's so much easier to just fire that up and use a standard interface to pull up a phone number or movie time, automatically add it to the system address book, or the movie time to iCal. Plus the TV show listings, etc. I can never remember which yellowpages site is any good when I need a phone number, so I end up going to several and having to figure out how to use each site. Plus with Watson/Sherlock/Central there is no advertising or "click here for feature X" links anyway. If you need a phone number, you have an interface to look up phone numbers with. If you need to translate something, you translate something, not see a bunch of ads for dictionaries and translation services.

Central looks very cool to me, as it gives a Sherlock/Watson type app to the PC (and Mac, I suppose). I hope it is more than a tech demo, and they turn it into some sort of application or service. I think it would be great.

25 Sep 2003 | jharr said...

I think that the meat of what this can be is not accurately reflected in the "show me my weather" example. What you've got is another UI framework, fully extensible, that can live on the desktop. Using webservices, an existing application can be given new life or made adaptive to multiple platforms.

You could now have a third mechanism for deploying enterprise software, one that can be used by the most casual user, built on webservices. In the past you've had a rich, desktop application model and the thin, web model. Some hybrids have existed but those are primarily the two. With something like this, lightweight and flexible, you can build applications with as much or as little functionality as you want and deploy it as a Macromedia Central app. This is truly where enterprise applications are going, leveraging webservices to deliver tailored experiences to specific user communities. This is simply another option. Too bad all they show is weather and movies.

25 Sep 2003 | Wilson Miner said...

Was anybody else at least a little freaked out by the whole in-flash install process?

I can't say I'd use it as is - just another app to keep running - but I can see it's usefulness in specific situations, for games and training apps for instance.

25 Sep 2003 | Brad Hurley said...

Too bad all they show is weather and movies.

I agree. Before it comes out of beta they will need some compelling and concrete examples to show what the technology can do, as they don't do a good job of describing it on their site. Even after reading their background articles and product descriptions, it's very hard for me to envision what Central will be able to do -- this is one product that needs to be sold more by show than by tell.

25 Sep 2003 | RS said...

Was anybody else at least a little freaked out by the whole in-flash install process?

Yeah. It's incredible. A little alarming, but since I actually wanted to install it, I appreciated it for being such a seamless no-brainer.

25 Sep 2003 | hp said...

Interesting but not a true match for Watson. Besides, I believe that iTunes is the best example where the things are going. It relies on WebServices as well but its integration is much more powerful.

I have a feeling that Apple may provide a framework that will enable such applications to be delivered painlessly. Compared to that Macromedia Central appears to be a gadget vehicle to push Flash sales.

And I agree with an above post. Macromedia should go back to building good software.

25 Sep 2003 | brian said...

ok, now that the whole push and pull hoopla fizzled YEARS ago, can someone clearly define the difference to me? In my opinion this is something that is pulling the info for you. It looks like a glorified RSS reader, i am interested to see how they expand this though.

26 Sep 2003 | Simon said...

Darrel: Actually it's not a showcase for the new Flash MX 2004 Pro since it's designed to run on the Flash 6 player. Chances are they did this since it's been in development since before the Flash 7 player was stable.

26 Sep 2003 | John Dowdell said...

Hi, thanks for the interest quick notes:

Install: It's built atop the installed Macromedia Flash Player 6, which most people already have, and the Central bits are sandbox'd SWF files rather than executable code... it's not like you're installing a native-code application (with all the security concerns this would imply).

Applications: Yup, movies and weather are just vanilla examples. I think the big excitement will come when diverse people create diverse apps with diverse data sources, and when these start communicating with each other.

Push: I'm not sure why this comparison came up so often today... there's no actual serverside push involved. Maybe it's because people will be creating task-specific applications using remote data, rather than browsing to a document which may have a static view of that data...? Not sure.

Apple: They've got great apps, true, but one of the attractions here is enabling tons of developers to easily create webservice tools for Mac, Win, Linux, handhelds. (And to get paid for doing it!) Central is just an enabling tool for the development community rather than an end in itself.

Lots of good comments in this thread already... Central is a bit of a different concept, and there's incremental kimono-opening, with this Preview being the latest, uh, the latest, uh well maybe I'm straining my metaphors here.... ;-) Keep an eye out this week for other tools to plug into that shell, and SDK should hit the street soon.

Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support

26 Sep 2003 | pb said...

I'd like to see this stuff done in the browser with JavaScript, DHTML and web services.

I've always found Sherlock and Watson to be quite stale which makes sense considering they are downloaded apps on a small platform.

The thing that alarmed about the Flash install is that it doesn't seem to work OMM (clean WinXP).

26 Sep 2003 | Ryan Schroeder said...

I think the real appeal of Central will come once third party developers have access to the system. There's no way to add "channels" to watson or sherlock. It really seems closer to Konfabulator with out the (apparent) ability to break outside the Central window, but with a much more robust developer environment and a built in way to distribute and charge for (Capitalists!) the applets

26 Sep 2003 | Rob Jones said...

Macromedia is also working on a new initiative called Royale, which, from what I can tell, is a way for app servers to deliver Rich Internet Apps to web browsers (there is a company named Laszlo that already does this and is beating the pants off MM imho). It seems like Central kind of overlaps with this, but its for delivering non-enterprise RIAs.

What I dont see is why we need another type of app to deliver Rich Internet Apps. Flash already works in browsers. Users are used to browsers.

I guess MM is counting on is developers writing "shareware" for Central in the hopes of making money. The big wildcard will be whether or not the apps will be compelling and useful enough to get people to pay for them.

Also, will end users be willing to install Central(remember, they are already super familiar with their browsers) so that they can run OTHER apps? Remember, most people only change their behavior when it's really worth it (us geeks just need something to be cool to learn it; my mom needs a VERY good reason to put up with learning some new fangled thing).

The Central beta is cool, dont get me wrong, but neither of the apps were cool enough for me to pay for.

Rob

26 Sep 2003 | Simon said...

I'm always amazed how quickly John Dowdell turns up in any forum discussing Macromedia. It feels positively unworldly... Do you think he hangs around in hyperspace somewhere scanning for relevant conversations?

26 Sep 2003 | JF said...

I guess MM is counting on is developers writing "shareware" for Central in the hopes of making money. The big wildcard will be whether or not the apps will be compelling and useful enough to get people to pay for them.

I wonder how well Central's UI will scale. What if I have 25 apps installed -- how will the top tab/button system work then? Is there room for 40 apps? Can I launch a Central app from the desktop (like a standard app) or do I need to launch Central and then select the app? Will we need new OS-based tools to simply manage the Central apps? Just curious when Central will become too complex for it's own good.

26 Sep 2003 | JF said...

I'm always amazed how quickly John Dowdell turns up in any forum discussing Macromedia. It feels positively unworldly... Do you think he hangs around in hyperspace somewhere scanning for relevant conversations?

I wonder if he has a custom RSS reader that alerts him whenever Macromedia is mentioned. Now that's a great product idea -- notifications whenever your company/name is mentioned. Stay ahead of the curve.

26 Sep 2003 | hp said...

I wonder if he has a custom RSS reader that alerts him whenever Macromedia is mentioned. Now that's a great product idea -- notifications whenever your company/name is mentioned. Stay ahead of the curve.

I have seen application like that used in a few companies I worked with/for. A couple of very prominent automobile makers are using it as do some financial services providers.

Still, a good idea especially if it could be fashined as a service for small(er) businesses. Who knows, it may be one of those Goolgets we keep hearing about.

26 Sep 2003 | John Dowdell said...

"It feels positively unworldly... " Nah, actually the name is a franchise, sorta like Bob Dobbs or Col. Sanders, that's all..... ;-)

(Before any rumors start, yes, that's facetious... I did a Technorati search on the Central URL.)

But I was wrong in what I wrote about "install" above, sorry! The Macromedia Flash Player 6 has a hook to receive a particular standalone Flash Projector from the Macromedia site, which is how it breaks out of the browser window. We don't have full info published yet, but are working on it... best links right now are in my blog:
http://www.markme.com/jd/archives/003371.cfm

For "lotsa tools", the toolbar icons will work like Safari's tabs... if there isn't enough space for all the icons then they'll overflow into a popup menu off to the right. You can rearrange the icons at will.

... hmmm, speaking of which, that "RSS alert" would be a good candidate for a Central tool... you could use existing engines and/or your own serverside process to hunt for occurrences of a particular term in a particular data source (combining Google News with a Technorati watchlist with your own RSS processing, eg)... it works as a background agent in Central, checking each source every so often... when it finds a new hit it send a "notice" to the Central console to alert you of news... you can then open the full-sized Central window for a customized interface to scan your particular sources. Document browsers definitely have an important role to play, but customized desktop tools also have unique ways to use the network, agreed...?

jd/mm

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