I am a Toy Tragic

Some of you will know that my hobby outside of all things mobile, is collecting toys, comics and general items of pop culture. My dad doesn't get it, my wife puts up with it and my kids are super jealous of what you can find in my man cave - but it's fun :) Anyway, I've launched a new blog today that'll be the outlet for some of my thoughts on being a grown up toy collector, as well as posts about items in my collection, product reviews and interviews with other toy geeks around the place.

It's called Toy Tragic. Visit the website (has a custom iPhone template for iPhone and iPod browsers). Follow us on Twitter. Facebook and mobile applications coming. Enjoy!

New Inside RIA Post - What the recent Adobe mobile announcements mean for RIA

There's been a lot announced in the past week about the Flash mobile platform, and with Flash Player 10 and AIR being the next big advancement, I thought I'd write up a post on my Inside RIA blog to discuss those announcements and what they mean if you're working with Flex or AIR at the moment.

Read the full post here, and also cast your vote in the recent Inside RIA Poll - "InsideRIA plans to increase its coverage of mobile development and design. How involved are you in mobile?"

New Nokia Sales Channel through OVI

More news from Nokia at Mobile World Congress - developers will be able to publish their content for sale through Nokia's Ovi service later on this year. It seems that they are looking to trump Apple's App Store through additional features such as location-based and "intelligent" content offerings, where the store can suggest content to you based on where you are, where you've been and what your freinds are doing. The N97 will be the first device with this all baked-in, but expect to see this roll right down the full line of devices from high-end S60 smartphones down through to S40 feature phones.

Using the publishing to Ovi service, third party software and content developers will have easy access to a single Nokia channel – the Ovi Store – to reach millions of consumers worldwide. With a 70% revenue share (less applicable taxes), all of the applications and content distributed through this new service creates instant revenue opportunities for the developers involved. Applications, games, personalisation content, and more will be offered to consumers.

Comprehensive resources and support from Forum Nokia are available to help developers get their applications ready for commercial distribution through the Ovi Store.

The Ovi Store is a scalable media distribution network unrivaled in size and opportunity, with advanced content targeting capabilities that will offer consumers relevant content through their social connections and their physical location information.

The Ovi Store consolidates the best experiences from Nokia’s current content services, including Download!, MOSH, and WidSets, into a single channel. Additionally, it expands upon Ovi Services to deliver media influenced by the people and places that matter to the end user.

To sign up to distribute your applications and content to millions of Nokia users globally, visit publish.ovi.com. Applications are being queued up at the moment, and full access will start to be given to approved developers in the coming months. Bill Perry has also started a Facebook group for Ovi Publishers.

Adobe announces Flash Lite Developer Challenge

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

It's obviously dawned on technology companies recently that the best way to get developers creating things with their software or for their devices or platforms, is to throw money at them - and who am I to complain?!

Adobe have announced a Flash Lite Developer Challenge, with entrants competing for a chance to win cash prizes (totaling $100k), software and distribution deals with leading aggregators.

Head on over to www.flashlitedeveloperchallenge.com to find out more (although when I posted this, the site didn't seem to have been switched on ... timing between press releases and availability a little off)

Adobe Mobile Site Live with new Featured Applications

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

In what is sure to be just an initial foray in time for Mobile World Congress, Adobe have launched m.adobe.com with some featured mobile applications available for download. I would expect that beyond Mobile World Congress, this mobile site will be developed further to be used for more extensive marketing of the opportunities for Flash developers on the mobile platform. It's targeted at the Flash Lite Distributable Player solution, so it currently is only targeting those supported countries - US, UK, India, Spain and Italy. If you're outside these locations, you can though download the Flash Lite 3.1 player from Adobe Labs so that the OTA player doesn't need to be downloaded.

The featured applications currently on the site include:

• Adobe Mobile World Congress "Concierge"
• Tower Bloxx
• Bone Comics
• Dolce & Gabbana
• Finetune
• Nespresso
• Disney Digicomics
  
• Zed Catalogue
• and more localised content for some regions ...
  

Adobe's new Flash Lite Numbers - Flash Lite shipped on 40% of new handsets in 2008

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

Some more numbers out of Mobile World Congress from Adobe - "Flash Lite has shipped on 1 billion devices (cumulative), and shipped on 40% of all new handsets in 2008".

I've said before how I think the 1 billion mark is a good number for marketing, but in reality is still a long way from representing a "standard". I think though for developers who are pitching Flash mobile application concepts and ideas to potential customers, the "40% of all new handsets on 2008" line provides an excellent counter point to the cumulative number, demonstrating that it's not a niche platform and is in fact picking up adoption speed very quickly. Expect these numbers to be significantly higher by next year with the introduction of Distributable Player.

Adobe Announces Open Screen Project Fund

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

The Open Screen Project Fund is a $10 million market development fund that will provide grants to developers in order to accelerate the creation of apps, content and services that leverage the Adobe Flash Platform and run across mobile, desktop and consumer electronics devices.

Developers around the world are invited to submit their ideas. Proposals will be reviewed by an Open Screen Project Fund steering committee. We are seeking applications that work across devices, and showcase the key features of Flash Lite, Flash Player and AIR. While the apps do not have to run across all three screens (desktop, mobile and CE devices), at a minimum a mobile version is required. Additional criteria can be found in the FAQ on the website.

You can apply now via the website.

Adobe Announces Public Beta for Flash Lite Distributable Player

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

Public Beta now available for Flash Lite Distributable Player
Adobe now have the Flash Lite Distributable Player out as a public beta that can now be accessed by developers. The Flash Lite Distributable Player solution allows developers to:

• target the latest version of the Flash Lite player (3.1), leveraging the content-triggered download model people are familiar with on the web, but for standalone applications.
• and reach millions of open OS smart phones through direct-to-consumer distribution, new off-deck aggregator partners (GetJar, Thumbplay and Zed), or existing distribution channels. 

OTA distribution of the player is currently available in US, UK, India, Spain and Italy with more following quickly, but anyone can download the player from Adobe Labs if OTA is not available. This has been the case because of the aggregator arrangements that have been put in place, and which regins they currently exist in.


Selling Distributable Player content through Aggregator Partners

Developers get 67% (Thumbplay) and 70% (Zed) of net revenues when selling their applications, an typical application sells for $4. Applications distributed by GetJar are free and can be supported by advertising, useful for projects where free/wide distribution is required.

This represents a shift in the thinking from Adobe on how to best enable and support the developer community. Developers have been asking for assistance in creating a Flash mobile ecosystem for many years now, and this is all the beginning of that starting to fall into place.

There's more information here on how to get started creating, packaging and distributing Flash Lite 3.1 applications.

Nokia WRT Aptana Plug-in now available

Nokia have released the 1.0 version of their Web Runtime Widget plug-on for the Aptana authoring IDE. Nokia WRT widgets are light-weight web applications designed with common technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Ajax, and even Flash) which can be distributed and installed like native mobile applications.

Nokia have been looking to strengthen the tool set and workflow for web developers to take their existing skills and start creating these WRT widgets, and so have been looking at ways to engage the developer community through the tools they already use. Aptana is a commonly used authoring environment for creating Ajax-based web applications, and being based on Eclipse it was a good first target in this strategy. Well done to the Nokia team!

Here are some useful links to help you get started:

• WRT Plug-in info page at Forum Nokia 
• WRT Plug-in page at Aptana 
• WRT Technology page at Forum Nokia 
• List of WRT devices 
• WRT plug-in discussion boards at Forum Nokia and Aptana 
• Forum Nokia Web Developer Library 
• Widgets code examples

Palm Joins Open Screen Project - Flash Player 10 coming to devices

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

Palm have joined in the Open Screen Project, and have committed to brining Flash Player 10 to their devices. The number of times I have been asked over the past few years, "I have an application that I want to build with Flash, but my customer base all use Palm" has almost been as many as the iPhone questions! There's certainly a resurgency of interest in this platform since the Pre was announced, and great to see that Flash is going to be part of its future.

Three new Flash Lite 3.0 Nokia S40 Devices

Three new Flash Lite 3.0 devices have been announced on the Nokia S40 6th Edition and S40 5th Edition FP1 platforms (which also will support NFL packaging for Flash Lite).

• 6700 Classic
• 6303 Classic
• 2700 Classic
  

Appearing as Guest Speaker at Brisbane Pitch Club

I've been asked to come along as the Guest Speaker at the next event for Pitch Club in Brisbane on March 26th. Pitch Club provides an opportunity for 9 ventures (+ 1 drawn on the night) to step into the ring. Business owners can 'pitch' their idea for 90 seconds to a crowd of investors, business angels, VCs and other entrepreneur enthusiasts (and a few more minutes if the crowd vote them through to Finals).

I'll be sharing my experiences with Moket over the past 4 years - both success stories and failures. I'm hoping to pass on some tips to other early-stage entrepreneurs and those looking to begin down the path of the technology start-up (but be warned ... I am far from the 'font of all knowledge' and certainly don't have all the answers!).

Visit the Pitch Club website for more details and to register your attendance.

New recordings and slides added to training resources

I've just added the slides and recordings of the last two Adobe eSeminars that I presented in January - "Mobile Workflow in Adobe CS4" and "Create Mobile Wallpaper with Illustrator for Beginners". Check out the list of resources here on the blog for these and other topics.

Blog now on Mippin

Just been playing around this morning with Mippin's service for creating mobile versions of your blog. You can now read my blog at mippin.com/dalerankine on your mobile device.
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Speaking at upcoming "Online and New Media Marketing" workshop

If you're in Brisbane on Feb 25th, I'll be participating on a panel at the monthly Networx Marketers Meeting, discussing "Online and New Media Marketing".

My fellow panelists are Yaro Starak (Entrepreneur and Professional Blogger, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com) and Anthony Dever (Blogging and Social Media Strategist, The Blog Project).

Online and New Media Marketing is still an unknown arena for many business owners, marketing and communication professionals. With the explosion of new media communications and the pace of technological change, it has been a challenge to establish hard fact amongst all the hype. This event promises to delve into the sometimes mysterious world of blogging, social networking (Facebook, Twitter), mobile technology & marketing, and virtual worlds through a panel discussion between three enthusiastic new media professionals.

Further details on the event and speakers are on the website. Should be a lot of fun.