Examples

Ben & Jerry's teamed with Universal Mind to develop a web application that promotes the company's ice cream through social networks. Integration with Facebook and Twitter allows users to comment on flavors, promote them on Facebook, and follow related content on Twitter.

Why the Flash Platform worked

• The Flash Platform supports integration with social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and others.
• The Flash Player’s broad reach allows access for millions of social network users without requiring a plugin install.
• The rapid development environment enabled deployment only weeks after concepting.
• Despite limited time and budget, the Flash Platform enabled the developers to build an app that “exceeded [the client’s] expectations.”

Technologies and ecosystem

Flash Player

• Zero install required for over 98% of connected desktops
• Ability to deploy applications that operate consistently across operating systems, browsers, and popular social networks

Flash CS4 Professional

• Precise control of creative design for web applications

Flex

• Rapid development environment, accelerating time to market
• Integration of multiple APIs from different sources and services

Experience the Ben and Jerry application

nomee™ uses Adobe Air to create an entirely new tool for Web 2.0 networking, bringing live social data to the user's desktop as a social news aggregator. nomee combines the streams of personal data of over a hundred websites with an address book sensibility to create a truly dynamic contact manager.

Why Flash Platform worked


• Brings browser-specific data to a desktop environment for faster social data updates with no need to open a browser
• Allows us to move most of the processing logic to the clients, reducing load on our servers.
• Provides development for Mac, Windows, and Linux environment within a single development cycle
• The Flex development framework allows us to easily turn desktop client code into a browser-compatible environment for Facebook

Technologies and ecosystem

Adobe Air

• Easy integration with existing web services across multiple service providers: Adobe, Facebook, and Nomee
• Abstracted OS-related issue such as window and file management so that redundant OS-targeted/specific code was unnecessary
• Customizable program visuals with cutting-edge design for a superior user interactive experience
• Consistent look and feel across platforms
• Seamless install from web page makes it easy to deliver the application on Facebook and other social network sites

Flex Framework

• Rapid prototyping and development
• The Flex development framework facilitated division of labor to allow visual rendering and back-end functionality to be developed in parallel

• Simplified localization for user data
• Eliminated need for cross-browser testing associated with other web development platforms

Facebook Platform API

• Uses ActionScript objects for responses and requests eliminating need to build request strings and parse responses
• Manages the code for generating signatures for each request
• Allowed us to use the Flex accelerated development environment for Facebook application
• Allowed us to bring Facebook into our AIR client

Adobe Kuler APIs, for skinning

• Provided user-created color palettes for application skins
• Seamless integration between color palette and desktop client

Photoshop/Illustrator

• Flex ActionScript environment compatibility with Flash facilitated for direct use of original vector design work within the desktop client
• MXML development platform allowed for familiar HTML design techniques using Photoshop and Illustrator images to be implemented in the desktop environment

Learn more about nomee