Brio Begins…

Hi, I’m Karen, also known as KT, the product manager for Brio.

Last week we launched a preview of the next generation of Adobe Acrobat Connect, codenamed “Brio.” Brio is web conferencing solution built with collaboration in mind. Whether it is ad-hoc collaboration with remote colleagues, a weekly team meeting, or a sales call, Brio gives you the tools you need to work together as if you were in the same room. And because Brio is built on Adobe’s Flash platform, it operates inside most popular web browsers and operating systems. ‘Nuff said. If you haven’t checked it out yet, give it a spin!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I want to thank all the people who have already signed up and provided feedback. It’s great to finally have the product available to the public and hear what you think! Please continue to use the product…and don’t forget to provide feedback and report bugs in the forums or by email at brio_beta@adobe.com.

Here’s what others are saying….

Robin Good says, “Kudos to Adobe for finally introducing a truly approachable SOHO solution…[which] not only integrates VoIP and teleconferencing facilities in Brio, but makes both of them free and accessible also from major European countries including the UK, Germany, France and more.”

Luca Mezzalira says, “It’s more easy to use, main functions are available like icons and it’s so fast! …you have a ‘widget’ to chat with others users, you can see other users…and you have a little control panel to manage [your room].Very cool!”

And if you are a developer you might be interested to know that Brio is built on the web services platform codenamed Cocomo. If you are interested in learning more about Cocomo, check out the Collaborative Methods blog.

Happy Holidays!

Sign up to participate in a user study…get $100

[UPDATE: this user study is over. Please don't call anymore :-) ]

We are looking for people to participate in a user research study on Thursday, December 6 and Monday, December 10 at our facilities in San Jose.

The study will take approximately 1 hour, and compensation will be $100.

Thank you!

Buzzword Preview Version 6

Things are moving apace in the world of Buzzword. First, it’s worth noting that we have a new domain name. Buzzword is now on its namesake domain – www.buzzword.com. Please update your bookmark, if you’ve set one.

In fact, you may have arrived at our old blog URL, but this blog can also be accessed via http://blog.buzzword.com. We have also moved our old company site, www.virtub.com, to http://about.buzzword.com.

And, as of yesterday morning, Buzzword itself has been updated. This is our sixth release in as many months; this latest version consists of a set of features almost exclusively requested by users – including word count, hyperlinks, and support for special characters.

Continue reading…

We’re Free!

We’re often asked the question: “Buzzword is free for now, but how long will it remain free?” So, let’s begin by making this as clear as possible: Buzzword is now, and will remain, free – no cost, free of charge, gratis and complimentary. If you read no further, trust us on this: we want Buzzword used as broadly as possible, with minimal barriers to adoption, so keeping it free *is* critical.

Continue reading…

More Share API and AIR goodness…

Steven Gemmen created a really cool AIR application called “Handout” using the Share APIs. Check it out http://initapp.com/2007/10/26/new-air-app-handout-powered-by-adobe-share/.

Thank you for waiting

The waits over and we are sharing more! We have started sending out invites to join the service, by sharing files through the Share :-) …off course. Everyone who added their email address to our waiting list should receive an invite by the end of this week. General sign-up for Share will be opened up next week.

Enjoy Share and continue to give us your feedback about the service.

Share Beta Updated

It has been a couple of weeks since we last spoke to you. Thank you all for using the service and providing valuable feedback. Since the last time, we have updated the Share Beta service with a few enhancements and bug fixes. In particular the embedded previewer now allows embedding of image files (including jpeg, gif, png) on websites, wikis or blogs.

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What a beautiful waterfall!!

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In addition we are also adding a full page toggle mode for the embedded previewer and other UI controls like zoom-in and scroll based on your feedback. These are particularly important when reading embedded documents.

A couple of features that the team is working on are:

  • Adding the ability to convert documents to PDF (including Microsoft Office files, ODF, etc.)
  • Easily searching and finding documents using the document properties and content.

More on these and additional features later…

Enjoy Share..

Sharing from your iPhone?

Shahram Javey, engineering manager for the Share team here at Adobe, built a very cool service using the Share REST APIs. The service allows accessing your Share Library, viewing documents and sharing documents all from your iPhone. Check it out at http://web.sharepdf.com. He talks about this in his blog.

This is really exciting and highlights the extensibility of the service. Shahram was able to take the vanilla Share APIs and build a prototype using these APIs in a just a couple of days. This is exactly the types of scenarios we have envisioned in opening up the service for use by developers and third parties service providers.

What a week this has been…

It was last Tuesday (Oct 2nd) that we unveiled the Share service at the keynote address at MAX. Wow! What a busy past week it was, we got a lot of great coverage in the press and the blogosphere. Want to thank everyone who have started using Share, sent us feedback on enhancements they would like to see in the service. Also special thanks to those who have expressed an interest in getting an account on Share, we will be sending out additional invites soon.

Continue reading…

Disruptive Word Processing

Disruptive innovations often initially result in worse performance compared with established products and services in mainstream markets. But disruptive innovations have other benefits. They are often cheaper, simpler, smaller, and more convenient to use. After taking root in a simple, undemanding application, disruptive innovations inexorably get better until they change the game, relegating previously dominant firms to the sidelines in often stunning fashion.

–Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovators Dilemma

Since Monday’s press announcement of Adobe’s pending acquisition of Virtual Ubiquity we’ve seen a storm of coverage by analysts, bloggers, and the press. Most of it has been extremely positive and encouraging. And it’s resulted in our servers being bombarded by what used to be called “The Slashdot Effect”. Only in this case it’s the total blogosphere/press effect.

Continue reading…