Author Archive
Why All the Fuss Over Angry Birds?
Source: Rovio Mobile.
Angry Birds, the mobile game from Rovio Mobile that allows players to “dish out revenge on the green pigs who stole (their) eggs,” has been making a lot of headlines lately, most recently for racking up 1 million downloads on Android in a single day.
That’s obviously a lot of downloads. But what’s the big deal? What’s so compelling about this game? And what can brands looking to develop a comparable mobile experience learn from its success?
For starters, Angry Birds was a solid success on the iPhone. Once it got publicity, its sales continued to grow and the PR continued.
In my opinion, the initial spark that got it the coverage that started the snowball effect was the choice of gameplay and presentation: The game isn’t complex. And the greatest attraction by far is that it is easy to pick up game play. It also has a simple concept of trajectory-based strategy, puzzle elements in the simplest incarnation, cute characters, fun audio, and an addictive level progression system that has you replaying boards to earn “all 3 stars.”
Love 'em or hate 'em, plugins are here to stay
There’s been much discussion and debate recently surrounding the iPad’s lack of Flash, which in turn has fueled discussion about the future of online video delivery. This week’s preview release of the HTML5-powered SublimeVideo player is seen by some as the beginning of the end for online video delivery in Flash player. As Senior Multimedia Development Consultant at Control Group, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the topic.
To me, this isn’t so much a debate about Flash/ActionScript 3 versus HTML5, but rather another win for HTML + Flash/AS3! It’s all about creativity as a developer. Bad coding leads to poor applications, proper coding leads to a proper experience. 
It is a common pitfall that most people think “HTML or Flash”. I see this as more power for the mixing of technologies, raising the cap on what can and can’t be done in a web browser.
Adobe’s technologies provide clear benefits to the end user, but also (and perhaps more importantly) the developer. As a developer, I can utilize the unique capabilities of the .flv format to protect content in some fashion or for metadata injection, all of which can be done on the fly and server-side, if implemented using Flash Media Server (FMS). I’m also really excited about Flash Player 10.1 – it brings the ability to scale all the way from mobile to HD flavors, and will be available on smartphones and other Internet-connected mobile devices.
This is about more than just video delivery, it is the platform combined with the tools, and Adobe has been making tremendous strides in going open-source with them. Adobe is providing a cohesive environment that is deeply integrated with some of the best tools out there for content creation. HTML5 is just starting out, and the gap between the tools and technology is too immense to make it the competition. Flash has fantastic penetration and Adobe can rapidly evolve the technology. Remember, HTML5 still is not a standard – in fact we are looking at sometime in 2012 before we’ll see a final recommendation. These are cohesive technologies and they are here to stay for a very long time, which means plugins will be around for a long time too. Simply put, plugin implementations have the potential to penetrate faster, and as history has shown they often do. Plugins forge the path, and the Web comes right behind them to standardize those paths.
If you want to better understand what the big picture is regarding Adobe and its technologies, I recommend reading a little bit about:
OpenScreenProject
Catalyst
SVG and FXG
Flex Data Services
RTMFP (Real Time Media Flow Protocol)
Binary Sockets