I am constantly amazed by the rich Internet applications (RIAs) that are being developed. It is incredible to think about how far we have come in the last few years. The three applications featured in this article are examples of some of the best and brightest I have seen over the past month. By combining an elegant user interface with an intuitive user experience while providing functionality that enables next-generation interaction, these applications are pushing the limit and moving RIA development forward.

Produle
Technology: Adobe® Flex®

The creation of rich Internet applications is certainly evolving. Adobe has made efforts to enrich the experience with new tools such as Adobe Flash® Catalyst™. Produle takes a different approach and bridges the designer and developer experience in the browser. This enables users to create full-featured SWF applications in a rich Flex based browser application.

Initially, I was skeptical of Produle. Many application creation tools are quite poor. But Produle impressed me when I looked at the sample applications. The samples include applications that integrate external data (through JavaScript), a REST web service, and a modular application, as well as RSS feeds. For the data-specific features, Produle has a data manager that makes the process of integrating external XML pretty easy (especially for developers who don't want to work with ECMAScript for XML at the code level).

Produle is impressive. It won't replace Flex Builder™ or Flash Catalyst for serious developers and designers, but it can certainly make creating SWF applications much easier for people who don't want to work at the code level.

Produle is currently in preview. You can sign up for an account today.

Skimmer
Technology: Adobe AIR®

A common type of AIR® application is one that can collect information from many different social services in a single dashboard. Skimmer combines services such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Blogspot in one desktop application. When you launch the application, you can set up links to all your respective accounts. After that, you are presented with a single feed that displays status updates and events from each of these services. Skimmer makes it extremely easy to keep up with your friends' tweets while also seeing their photos and videos as they upload them. Skimmer also eases the upload process for YouTube and Flickr: just drag your photos and video into the application, and Skimmer takes care of the rest.

Every time I use Skimmer, the user interface continues to impress me. In addition to building a quality interface, the team at Fallon also made the colors and layout completely customizable. This means that you can adjust the interface to best suit the way you use the application. The profile page has a customizable number of rows, and you can even assign a specific service to a specific row. In addition, when viewing the main feed, you can filter items by service, specific groups of friends, or keyword.

Skimmer is available to download today.

SpatialKey
Technology: Flex

When I introduced you to SpatialKey in the November 2008 issue, it was only a technology preview. Things have changed quite a bit since then, and SpatialKey is now in beta as a full service. According to the site, SpatialKey is an information visualization, mapping, analysis, and reporting system. In short, it enables you to easily visualize data that has a geographic context. One of the main additions to SpatialKey's toolset with this beta is the ability to import your own data. Any geographic data that can be exported to a CSV file can be integrated into SpatialKey — even if that data is not geocoded.

You can create reports that enable you to view detailed and elegant maps that display your data. Several report are available. You can view your data as a full-screen map, a dashboard, a timeline map, a heat map, a heat grid, or as graduated circles. Another impressive feature is the ability to adjust the upper and lower thresholds of the heat map so you can view the scale that is needed from your data set. In addition, you can add additional layers of data to compare multiple data sets simultaneously.

The current beta allows you to have data sets with 35,000 rows, and the upcoming versions will take that number even higher.

SpatialKey is currently in semi-private beta. You can request an account today.

Disclaimer: I work for the company that developed SpatialKey (Universal Mind), but I do not work on the SpatialKey team. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Conclusion

I consider all of these applications to be leaders in their respective market. They have many differences, including server-side platform, target market, and even platform (Flex vs. AIR). But the key is to recognize the similarities: a clean and intuitive user interface, the ability for users to integrate and visualize their own data, and customization options that help users set up the application to work best for their own unique workflow. By capitalizing on these principles, your application can contribute to the next generation of rich Internet applications.

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