As if online marketers don’t have enough to keep track of, with all the Tweeting and Facebooking and iPhoning going on amongst the countless other tried-and-true channels like email, landing pages and SEM—along comes Adobe AIR.
Adobe AIR isn’t new—it was released out of beta in late February 2008, but we’ve witnessed it spread like wildfire through the developer community in the past several months. If you aren’t familiar with AIR, in short, it provides a relatively easy way to take an application traditionally written for the web, and convert it to a desktop application. Brands like eBay, MINI, Nickelodeon, and AOL have all published publicly available AIR applications.
Why would something like desktop applications be meaningful to marketers? Quite simply: mindshare. You’ve undoubtedly heard variations of the term, break free of the clutter. AIR allows marketers to do just that, by taking a web experience out of the browser, and onto a user’s desktop, providing a more meaningful, dedicated experience with a brand—and one they'll pay attention to more often, because it lives on their computer.
This is lean-in marketing. With the ability to push information downstream via a desktop app, you aren’t relying on users to visit your site, or hitting a cluttered inbox with an email encouraging them to do so. And without browser limitations, you can provide more interactive, engaging experiences.
Branded Desktop Applications (BDAs for short) are nothing new, the most famous examples being Weatherbug and Southwest Ding! With the introduction of AIR however, the possibilities become more extensive and much easier to deploy and track, using analytic tools marketers are already familiar with, such as Google Analytics or Omniture. Additionally, Adobe makes it easy to use leading web application coding languages and tools like Javascript, Flash and Flex to easily deploy AIR apps.
Isn’t this the same as Desktop Widgets?
Yes and no. Desktop Widgets are great for publishing single-purpose, information or entertainment, and yes, they can be used as push messaging vehicles too. (As widget developers, we’re huge fans of course.) But they are limited in functionality—for example a widget can’t use a local database on a user’s machine, or access things like the user’s file system. AIR apps provide a more robust framework, allowing for endless possibilities.
It’s worth a few moments to explore AIR and how other marketers are using the technology to their advantage. Check out the Adobe AIR showcase at: http://www.adobe.com/products/air/showcase/
