--- title: "Twittering To The Max: Thoughts On Adobe Late 2008" date: 2008-12-18T12:47:34Z modified: 2008-12-18T12:47:34Z permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/twittering-to-the-max-thoughts-on-adobe-late-2008/" type: post status: publish excerpt: "" wpid: 1766 categories: - Uncategorized tags: - Uncategorized - adobe coldfusion MAX Flex timestamp: 2008-12-18T12:47:34Z --- [![](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/3106994649_9d965e6688.jpg?v=0) ](http://www.flickr.com/photos/monkchips/3106994649/in/photostream/) I recently attended Adobe’s MAX conference in Milan. Great show, and a chance to catch up with old pals like evangelists [Duane Nickull](http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2008/12/wrap-up-from-max-emea-in-milan.html) and [Ryan Stewart](http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/), Flash Platform uber maven [Peter Elst](http://www.peterelst.com/blog/) (essential blog if you’re into Adobe, lots of great video content), and newer friends of RedMonk such as [Ben Forta](http://www.forta.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/12/8/Gartner-Recommended-WHAT-Over-ColdFusion). Adobe has some of the best evangelists in the industry and treats them accordingly. These guys are allowed, are even _supposed_ to have fun, and to drive that sense of fun into the communities they interact with. **Bit of a Spat** I had a bit of a spat with Adobe on Twitter yesterday, when [I accused the company of going quiet on the service after an initial burst of activity](http://twitter.com/monkchips/statuses/1063016454). I wanted to generate a reaction, and mission accomplished. It had surprised me that the same company that until recently was saying [the web is broken](http://www.redmonk.com/cote/2006/10/25/adobe-max-06-forking-the-web/) were happy to ignore A-listers like [@ross](http://twitter.com/ross) and [@cshirky](http://twitter.com/cshirky) saying PDF was where data went to die. PDF of course has a role to play in some truly important contexts – the world of legal documents, tax forms and so on. Adobe wouldn’t take my criticism lying down though. I got dinged by [@ddura](http://twitter.com/ddura), [@rcharney](http://twitter.com/rcharney/statuses/1063065523), [@peterlest](http://twitter.com/peterelst/statuses/1063020038) (community member rather than employee), @[sjespers](http://twitter.com/sjespers), [@jdowdell](http://twitter.com/jdowdell/status/1063059342). Oh yeah and @[ryanstewart](http://twitter.com/ryanstewart/status/1063244274), who said it was stupid to have an opinion about how people should “do twitter”. There are many that would disagree. But really what I am saying is Ok I get it. Adobe is there and prepared for rapid response and pushback (against me at least!). I somehow even missed the fact Duane was on the service. So well done Adobe. I take it back. I still think the company can do more in using Twitter as a listening and responding engine, but really that’s up to Adobe. > **GENERAL POINTER TIME**: whatever your company, brand or product a great way to get unvarnished views and reviews of your product is the [Twitter Search](http://search.twitter.com/) engine. Its the mother lode of modern word of mouth. You can set up a search and subscribe to it using RSS. You will therefore get a notification when anyone on the Twitter network mentions the term. Very useful in a number of areas- such as brand management and requirements gathering. **Adobe is listening (to me)** How do I know this? Because the company’s AR team here in the UK led by [Marc Duke](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/098/94a), working with [Belinda Tewson](http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Belinda-Tewson/533167248) (she of the crazy husky voice- I really must ask Belinda to record some RedMonk idents for our TV and radio shows) was tracking my tweets at MAX. When they told me I thought super- I can post those as a blog roundup of the vent. And that is what follows – I have cleaned them up a bit, and worked on chronology – Twitter is suboptimal for documenting events because its chronological. So thanks Marc, Belinda and everyone at Adobe. Its been great working with you in 2008 and I look forward to 2009. Twitter on, dudes. 😉 If you’d prefer a podcast of my thoughts on MAX check it out [here](http://www.riaweekly.com/2008/12/02/riaweekly034/). **MAX Twitter Report**, summary [here](http://twitter.com/monkchips/status/1064805980): > major win. just got an IP address in the Max keynote. better text support in Flash – thank god. lets unbreak the web! > > rt @tomraftery: “@monkchips when there is a View Source with Flash, then the web will be unbroken!” > > @ryanstewart demoing Adobe Thermo (now boringly called Flash Catalyst). he’s playing the role one of Q’s technicians in Bond (today’s theme) > > rt @timanderson “Now showing Alchemy in the MAX keynote – example, take OpenSSL C code for encryption, convert to ActionScript for Flash” > > ColdFusion getting some love. import to Flex Builder codename Gumbo: the forthcoming “throw everything into the pot” Adobe IDE. > > Adobe just showed off a project from a company called Ensemble. the visual studio flex editor, a port of BlazeDS with AMF remoting to .NET > > Adobe showing off JQuery goodies to make Dreamweaver look good. > > Tofino is a new tool from Ensemble Systems – produces Flex code from a Visual Studio plug in. MXML editing support http://tinyurl.com/5woahf > > matt choten “Flex differentiation vs Microsoft… is ubiquity amongst designers”. i think its that Flex doesn’t make java devs wanna puke… > > upcoming feature in flexbuilder. service introspection. current one is “not our best implementation”. allow “Adobe code to do the work” > > meeting matt chotin, who is “in charge of the Flex SDK”. part of the platform group at Adobe. “i have to be very friendly with everyone”. > > benefits of open sourcing the Flex SDK- acceptance and adoption. some limited outside contributions from individuals, rather than vendors. > > @aral great tweet stream on Adobe Cocomo and Google App Engine. go read ’em folks. “Google App Engine, for example, is Google Lite.” > > Adobe is apparently considering developing applications for project managers- software and media production. > > @billhiggins the context is talking to human beings at Max. I don’t have links, only conversation to report. > > Photoshop is absurdly slick for photo manipulation. but we knew that already. now it has 3d painting – onto 3d models. useful? dunno. > > holy crap- Adobe Premier Pro will do video to text transcription. @cote it looks like redmonk is going to be buying some software