One way this is happening is by incorporating custom meeting pods: specialized, in-meeting applications (pods) that are either built by our own product folks, partners or external developers. Our published software development kits (see: Adobe Connect Developer Center) let developers create new and interesting pods that can live natively within Adobe Connect – this capability is entirely unique, increasing capabilities that address specific needs and interests and making web meetings more engaging.
In this post, I’ll demonstrate how easy it is to integrate extensions into an Adobe Connect meeting room.
Demo: Personalize Meeting Rooms
I’ve created a demo that shows how easy it is to start leveraging the extensibility of Adobe Connect by adding custom pods to your meeting room – check it out:
There is more information, including currently available custom pods, at our extensions and integrations page here.
Get Started
Screen sharing is not really collaborating, which is why, over time, we’ve focused on the flexibility of Adobe Connect. The ability to integrate custom pods and customize meeting rooms gives our customers a great advantage – we encourage you to experiment with many of our free custom pods such as the popular TwitterConnect.
It’s still early, but we’re definitely expecting great creativity from developers, and more engaging and useful meetings for all.
Stay in touch with us here and on Twitter @AdobeConnect as we continue to share news and views on extensibility and a wide range of web conferencing topics.
Tat Communication wanted to find a way to deliver higher-quality online meetings as cost effectively as possible. The goal was to offer customers rich, dynamic webinars—while being sensitive to expense.
Adobe Connect combined with Refined Data’s Talking Stick custom meeting pod (for enhanced video and audio functionality) is helping Tat deliver high-end, engaging productions that draw an average of 300 participants per session. Clients are engaging staff and partners, while Tat is carving a niche and creating competitive advantage.
More to come on extensibility – please stay in touch with us here and on Twitter: @AdobeConnect as we continue to share stories, news and views on a wide range of web conferencing topics.
Today, we’ve begun upgrading customers using the hosted version of our product to Adobe Connect 8 Service Pack 2 (SP2). If you have an on-premise or managed service deployment, this upgrade is available today as well, and your account administrator will be provided with additional information on how to access it. For customers already on version 8.1, SP2 will provide several key product enhancements to help improve user experience.
Adobe Connect hosted customers will be upgraded to Adobe Connect 8 SP2 per our migration schedule. For information on the timing of your upgrade, please visit our migration center here. On the right-hand side of the page, mid-way down you can enter your Adobe Connect meeting URL and learn more about when your server is expected to be migrated.
Adobe Connect 8 SP2 enhancements include:
Customizable display of attendee information
In Adobe Connect 8 SP2, account administrators will have greater control over how attendee names and information are displayed in the meeting environment (attendee pod, chat pod, share pod, etc.). Attendee information can be customized to display profile information such as location, title, rank, and any other supplemental information that exists for users. This helps enable meeting hosts and presenters to quickly know who they are sharing information with, understand audience demographics at a glance, and segregate information sharing in meetings more effectively.
In-product notification enhancements
Adobe Connect 8 SP2 can enable account administrators to create their own in-product notifications and immediately notify all end users on the account with any information that they want to broadcast. Hosted customers will continue to receive critical in-product notifications from Adobe as well.
Ubuntu Linux 10.04 64-bit Add-in now available
Adobe Connect now supports hosts and presenters using Ubuntu Linux 10.04 64-bit OS with a new Meeting Add-In. This Add-in is not required for Adobe Connect 8 SP2 and is completely optional. The Add-in can be downloaded here.
We hope that you will enjoy these enhancements in Adobe Connect 8 SP2. Please check out our migration center for additional information and to look up the expected timing of your upgrade.
Yesterday, at the Enterprise Learning! Conference & Expo, the Best of Elearning! 2011 awards results were announced. Program recognition is significant because nominations and winners are determined by executives and business managers engaged in the areas of enterprise learning and workforce technology.
We’re very pleased that Adobe Connect has been recognized in two categories:
Best Web Seminar Solution – Winner
“Nice interface, great performance that allows in-depth learner interactions.”
Best Virtual Classroom – Winner
Nominations and voting were conducted over a three month balloting period. Given both the quality of competition and quantity of nominations – this year featured 1,750 nominations, covering 56 products across 20 categories – we thank all who took the time to vote and support Adobe Connect!
To read more about the awards and results, please see the press release from the Elearning! Media Group here.
And if you’re not already following us on Twitter, check us out @AdobeConnect.
Last week, we discussed extensibility as the future of web conferencing. Well for some, the future is already here. Jennifer Wicks, Executive Producer at California State University Chancellor’s Office, recently talked to us about how the university, in partnership with Refined Data Solutions, uses Adobe Connect in combination with extensions from Refined Data Solutions to deliver engaging, high-impact online meetings to CSU campuses across the state. With Adobe Connect, CSU saved more than $1 million on travel-related expenses and reduced carbon emissions by more than 600,000 metric tons over a two-year period. The Chancellor’s Office has also seen dramatic improvement in real-time interaction and collaboration among dispersed administrators and faculty.
For the CSU Chancellor’s Office, Adobe Connect provides seamless, reliable access to online meetings that include high-quality videos and interactive participation—without requiring participants to download additional hardware or software. The dynamic solution can also communicate in real-time the environmental benefits of each online meeting in session. To learn more about how California State University Chancellor’s Office is using Adobe Connect with the inventive extensions from Refined Data Solutions, click here.
We appreciate the conversation on extensibility so far, and look forward to continuing it – including additional posts here in the coming weeks.
While many think of web conferencing as simple screen sharing — sharing PowerPoint and “passing the ball” from one presenter to the next—that’s a limited interaction that hasn’t changed much in 10 years.
In contrast, we’re seeing organizations expanding what they’re doing and what they expect from online meeting solutions. Beyond simple screen sharing, they’re enabling more effective collaboration, supporting a range of use cases throughout their enterprises, and in some cases, managing highly specialized interactions such as guided selling, telemedicine and cross-border disaster recovery coordination – to name a few.
We’re glad to be right there with them, helping support and lead this movement toward a broad and rapidly growing range of more advanced use cases. We’ve taken an open approach with our product development over time and focused efforts on creating a rich, flexible solution that integrates well with other systems and is highly extensible. Our APIs, free SDKs and other developer resources encourage development and enable customization. We encourage you to read on for more about our perspective on extensibility, our ecosystem that’s growing around it, what a few of our customers have accomplished, and how you can get your hands on the latest and greatest.
Market Trend – Customization
In this video, Arun Anantharaman, our VP and GM of Adobe Connect (@arunster), discusses overarching trends in web conferencing including increasing demands for customization and solutions that integrate with other systems.
Extensions Ecosystem
We’ve built out a unique extensions ecosystem. Looking at the image below, dark blue represents areas where ours is the only solution that provides such extensions, and light blue where we’re one of few that offer the capabilities. Several vendors, including Adobe, provide integrations to other systems and mobile support.
We’ve divided extensions into seven groups:
Integrations: integrations with audio, CRM, chat, learning management and other systems
Custom Meeting Pods: specialized, in-meeting applications; either pre-built or custom
Adobe Technologies: utilization of Adobe technologies including Flash and AIR
For more information and to download the very latest, see our extensions and integrations page here.
Customer Uses
The extensibility of Adobe Connect is a direct response to the real-world requirements of customers — the need to solve unique business problems, and to have personalized experiences. Here are a few great examples:
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations agency, uses Adobe Connect and a specialized extension from our partner, RefinedData to support simultaneous interpretation, allowing multi-lingual, interactive remote online meeting participation; see their press release
The California State University Chancellor’s Office has standardized on Adobe Connect and in-meeting extensions to improve collaboration with rich video and save travel expense while lightening environmental impact; check out their story here
A high-profile political event recently incorporated our TwitterConnect custom pod in its Adobe Connect large-scale webinar solution to include conversation with supporters and elevate community building
Developers
The Adobe Connect Developer Center has the free SDKs, APIs and learning materials developers need to get started extending capabilities; additional resources include tutorials and a forum.
Looking Forward
We have many customers using Adobe Connect in conjunction with key extensions to realize value today. And we’re definitely looking forward to what the creativity of developers and our customers brings to bear as we move forward. Please do stay in touch.
Hot on the heels of our post earlier this week about the latest version of our app for Android, we’re pleased to share that Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 is now available for BlackBerry PlayBook! You might recall we launched the initial version of this web conferencing app earlier this year and discussed it here.
Similar to our Android app, Adobe Connect Mobile for BlackBerry PlayBook now includes for the first time rich hosting capabilities, as well as enhanced video quality, an update to the user interface and improved navigation for added flexibility and ease of use.
Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 provides users more complete confidence to host and participate in mobile conferencing anytime, anywhere:
Control meeting access from your mobile device
The host can:
Start and end meetings
Accept or deny guests from entering meetings
Enable or disable participant’s ability to broadcast their cameras and audio (VoIP)
Promote or demote user roles to and from Host, Presenter, and Participant
Remove users from meetings
Control all active pods
Start and stop content and screen sharing
Create and edit content in the Notes pod
Advance slides and animations (capability available to both Presenters and Hosts)
Enhanced user interface for ease of use, control
New layout and controls allow meeting attendees to more easily:
View all activity happening in the meeting at once
Focus on an activity to enter input in Public Chat, Private Chat, and Polls
Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 is available here in BlackBerry App World. Adobe AIR 2.7 or later is required.
Remember, we also have an Adobe Connect Mobile application for Apple iOS devices. You can find version 1.5 on iTunes Preview here. It will be updated soon to version 1.7, so stay tuned to our blog and @AdobeConnect.
I’m excited to announce the availability of our Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 web conferencing app for Android tablets and smartphones! This new version extends the capabilities of our previous release (see this post) in a number of ways. We’ve added rich hosting capabilities, improved video quality, updated the user interface and enhanced navigation for greater functionality, flexibility and ease of use. We encourage you to download the free Adobe Connect Mobile app from the Android Market today (more on that later).
Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 gives the user complete confidence to host and participate in mobile conferencing anytime, anywhere. This release provides new features and an updated interface for tablets and smartphones, including the following capabilities and views:
Control meeting access, permissions and activities from your mobile device
The host can:
Start and end meetings
Accept or deny guests from entering meetings
Enable or disable participant’s ability to broadcast their cameras and audio (VoIP)
Promote or demote user roles to and from Host, Presenter, and Participant
Remove users from meetings
Control all active pods
Start and stop content and screen sharing
Create and edit content in the Notes pod
Advance slides and animations (capability available to both Presenters and Hosts)
Enhanced user interface for even greater ease of use and control
New layout and controls allow meeting attendees to more easily:
View all activity happening in the meeting at once
Focus on an activity to enter input in Public Chat, Private Chat, and Polls
Check out this demo to see some of the new features, including those I’ve described above:
Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 is available here in the Android Market for users whose devices meet the minimum system prerequisites. Adobe AIR 2.7 for Android (or later) is required, as is Android 2.2/FroYo (or later). A list of mobile devices that meet the AIR system requirements can be found here.
Remember, we also have Adobe Connect Mobile applications for Apple iOS devices and BlackBerry PlayBook. You can find version 1.5 for iOS on iTunes Preview here and for BlackBerry PlayBook on BlackBerry App World here. The apps will be updated to version 1.7 soon, so please stay tuned to us on this blog and Twitter.
As always, we’re interested in hearing from you—in comments, on our mobile user forum, and on Twitter @AdobeConnect.
Cheers,
Randah McKinnie, Principal Product Manager
Update 10/4/11: We discussed in comments below that Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 for Android would support both the front- and back-facing cameras of devices after the next update to Adobe AIR, on which the app is built. AIR 3 is now available, it can be downloaded here. Now, Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 for Android users can leverage both cameras on devices running Android 2.3 (or later). After you download AIR 3 on the device, you will notice the camera control dialog in Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 will have a new button. Tapping the button with the camera and arrow will allow you to switch between cameras.
During a conversation with Martyn Lewis, founder and principal of 3g Selling, Martyn talked about the company’s focus on delivering high-impact sales training to corporations worldwide. By combining the reach and flexibility of online learning with powerful features in Adobe Connect for eLearning, 3g is revolutionizing traditional approaches to training global professionals. In less than 18 months, 3g held more than 600 virtual, instructor-led training programs and achieved outstanding results using Adobe Connect instead of using trainings in traditional classrooms.
Not only has the move to live, virtual trainings substantially reduced training costs, but it has also improved participant engagement in sessions and retention of information. For example, participants have more flexibility to attend shorter presentations over several weeks versus having to take in a huge volume of new information in just a couple days. Also, the availability of persistent meeting rooms through Adobe Connect makes it easy for participants to reconnect to discuss at any time what they’ve learned or to get new updates.
3g’s model blends television production concepts with proven sales training techniques to create high-impact, live, virtual trainings accessible to people on mobile devices or laptop computers. Produced like television or radio broadcasts, the company’s sales training features live video and audio, presentations, scheduled breakout sessions, and interactive elements such as chat and whiteboards that take learner engagement and content retention to new heights. To learn more about how 3g Selling is using Adobe Connect, click here: http://adobe.ly/oiTsH7
Chris Benz, director of online events at The eLearning Guild , recently talked to us about how the organization uses Adobe Connect to deliver innovative online events. ‘The Guild’ is the oldest and most trusted source of information and network for eLearning professionals, and these events are designed to enhance the knowledge, expertise and practice of its members. By implementing Adobe Connect, The eLearning Guild enables eLearning professionals to attend live sessions or access almost 700 archived sessions.
Persistent, customizable Adobe Connect meeting rooms improve event preparation while mobile options eliminate travel costs while still creating an engaging interactive environment for idea sharing. To learn more about how The eLearning Guild is using Adobe Connect, click here.
Yesterday, at the 
