Did you know that there are half a billion people (or perhaps more accurately computers) on this planet with Shockwave installed? Really, the current Shockwave user base is larger than 500 million and growing. It got me thinking about the size of that number. Its one of those too large to visualize numbers.
If each one paid you 2$ US you’d be a billionaire. There are approximately one and two thirds players installed for every person in North America. There are about enough for every two persons in India to share one. In fact, there are about enough for every 12 people on the planet to share 1. That means there are so many installed copies of Shockwave, that there is essentially 1 for every 12 people.
I wonder how that compares to televisions? Other software applications? It would make a fascinating graph wouldn’t it? I’d like to see it done in Shockwave – perhaps Shockwave 3D. In fact, I’d be happy to give the first person to send me one … lol (nah, I’m not promising any more beers.)
Comments
I don’t know about that half a billion SW installed plugins, but talking about popularity, Shockwave is on the 3rd place (after Flash & Acrobat).
And this means SOMETHING!
Are you planning on releasing an Intel version for OS X soon ? Maybe that would add another few million users : )
Even though i am a great director fan, i doubt this number. If every year about 100 milion PC’s are sold, and a PC lives for about max 5 years (this is the case for a mac, a PC however is usually dead after 3 years), then there are about half a bilion PC’s around and then shockwave would be installed on allmost all of them. Or am i wrong in the arritmatic?
http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/windows.html
If you want to make the community feels better you should talk about why the lack of updates for Director, why the one year delay for Director 11 and many other things does not mean that Director is sinking
A great article would maybe be some info on some of the updates that will be available in the new version of Director.
And maybe some information on Bug Fixes too (such as, is there going to be a fix for non-ediable fields in LDM/Linked-Director-Movies)
Doesn’t matter how many shockwave plugins exist. If Director 2007 (sorry, 2008) doesn’t come out soon there won’t be anyone left developing Shockwave at all. There used to be 5 Director devs at this company in 2005 and now I’m the only one left.
So Allen, your blog’s getting tons of traffic and feedback which makes it an excellent gauge of the current level of interest in Director, right? Honestly though it’s good to see the Director team faces in Bangalore. I can tell they’re on it but I can also tell they’re overwhelmed and unsure of the future. I know it’s your job to pound some pride back into this project. I’ve been using Director since it was VideoWorks. I knew Marc and Jay back when they were trying to convince Broderbund we should ship Carmen Deluxe as a Director runtime (I was that product’s interface designer and prototype developer). I retired from work-for-hire in 2003 but still make my own pet projects with Director, 3DS Max, Photoshop, etc. I also teach digital photography and multimedia materials dev. at JMU. I’ll continue using Director whether it’s retired or not. I suspect Shockwave will be maintained for a few more years, regardless. Now ‘fess up and tell me WTF is really going on in Bangalore. I know Indian developers as a class are among the finest in the world but without strong visionary leadership they become convincing paycheck preservationists not easily threatened or cajoled. Hey if you want some help I’ll volunteer my time. I’ve built a career around Director as a tool for creating functional rich media product prototypes. Now I’m on the downhill slide so why not give something back here, too?
tmw
That stat is a running counter right?
I ask because that accounts for not just recent installs, but also those from years and years ago on computers that may have long been put in the closet for new systems.
I’d like to see what the downloads look like year by year since the MX 2004 release. That way we can see the spike up in the months / years following the pending release of the next release.
It is still a big number though.
Is it circular for me to comment back on my own post? So I got so much interest in this number that I had to investigate, and thanks to some help from Rick Jones at Adobe, I had a meeting with a representative of the research team that works with outside agencies to assess and understand how research stats are gathered.
Priya Kothari is a Research Analyst for Adobe, and she helped explain first – that I had the wrong number (its actually 406 million at last count.) how the number is calculated, and how they know that it’s a real number of actual computers connected to the Internet capable of viewing content with that plugin (not tucked away in closets or rotting at the bottom of lakes.)
It seems that almost as if scripted by Douglas Adams for one of his Dirk Gently novels, the mechanism for testing plugins involves the assignment of little virtual fish. Consumers are asked, do you see a fish – as the plugin under examination is triggered to present an image of a fish, and then the data (yes and no answers) is interpreted. The results of the data are updated and posted regularly to the web here;
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/shockwaveplayer/
And the actual research methodology is posted online here;
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/methodology/
So you can get the strategy and methods from the actual research experts, rather than my absurd ramblings about bygone science fiction humorists and fish.