Aral Balkan

Recently, I gave a talk titled Web '07 - Web '08 at the Christmas charity dinner (linking to the Google cache as the original site appears to be down at the moment) organized by Sussex Geek Dinners. It was a lighthearted tour through the highlights of Web '07 and a look ahead to Web '08* with predictions by myself and some of my friends.

In my predictions for 2008, I talked about how we will be seeing more RIAs in 2008 -- both from Adobe and third parties -- how Silverlight is not going to have a widespread impact (although is definitely something to keep an eye on for 2009/10 and the competition is going to give Adobe a welcome push in the right direction), how mobile Flash is going to move away from Flash Lite to full-scale Flash playback on devices and how we're going to see Flash on the iPhone, how sometimes-connected applications and web/desktop hybrid applications are going to gain importance with AIR, Google Gears, etc., and how real-time 3D in Flash is going to change the aesthetics of the web.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that last phrase. It's the same thing I uttered back in 2005 before the release of Flash 8. Back then, .Net magazine pasted my prediction on its cover and I was talking about alpha-channel video, not 3D. I think we can agree that alpha channel video in Flash has altered the aesthetics of the web in the intervening period and I am convinced that 2008 is the year that Flash is going to do the same thing with 3D thanks to Papervision3D.

Specifically, the combination of alpha-channel video, bitmap effects and filters, and real-time 3D is going to create a new benchmark in production values for online experiences. We're already seeing trailblazers like Carlos Ulloa, Ralph Hauwert, and John Grden are pushing the boundaries in this area and, in 2008, we are going to see more mainstream adoption of these techniques.

(I just read a somewhat myopic article in 3D World magazine titled "The look of 3D in 2008" that didn't even touch upon web 3D in any of its predictions! Could it be that web 3D is going to blindsight the traditional 3D community?)

To these predictions, I add two new ones that are closer to my heart: Firstly, Flash developers are going to get a lovely toy-box of APIs to work with and, secondly, we're going to witness a conference that's also going to be a technological tour-de-force to very visibly and publicly define how far we've come in Web '08. The latter has me more excited than I've been in a _very_ long time. And that's all I'm going to say about that for the moment.

The web just keeps getting more and more exciting... here's to a most wonderful 2008!

* Just as an aside, can we please drop the version numbers? We know in software that the moment an application gets its version number it's out of date. So why do we want to apply the same paradigm to describing the web? It's far more accurate, imho, to analyze the characteristics that defined the web in a given year. Hence, Web '08, not Web 3.0).

Comments

• Aral, We are building an enitre UX Platform, 2008 is for me going to be the actual going to have significant impacts in this space. Already we are seeing an uptake that is healthy and with VS2008 hitting the shelves, there's likely to be a renewed and healthy focus on our UX Platform(s) going forward. Adobe are likewise going to heat things up (which I'm excited about), but overall to downgrade Silverlight's impact for 2008 is somewhat suprising given it's current impact in 2007? (i'd love to hear your thoughts as to why specifically?) I meet wit a lot of customers world-wide, and I disagree with the "..convincing clients to adopt a new plugin..", i've found a lot of the times the customers aren't the ones focusing on which hammer their builders are to use? it's more the developers/designers themselves weighing up this choice (to most customers it's an output). Given the ROI on Silverlight at present in terms of online video? and also not forgetting that a lot of video centric sites out there use both RealOne and Windows Media Player (now can be consolidated under one roof), it just doesn't stack in the favour of that point. Suffice to say, that the expectation that you're to choose one and only one isn't what's happening as well. There are hints in the space of using them both together, and that's probably a natural path (outside the javascript adopters) as when you think about some of the RIA shops that are attracted to Silverlight, Flash has been their baseline platform. To migrate from one to the other in terms of adoption, it's likely we'll see hybrid approaches going forward. What impact will that make overall? I'd say significant and I think around the time of MIX08 you'll see an increased uptake in Silverlight numbers, especially post-celebration(s) of Microsoft MIX 08. I can also assure you that the teams aren't rushing, a lot is being considered and when you build an entire UX Platform with both Tools, Runtimes and Cloud to match you kind of can't afford to rush anything. If anything one could argue "we've taken to long", but rushed? - Scott Barnes RIA Evangelist Microsoft.

  by Scott Barnes on 2007-12-09 04:55:32

• [...] Web ‘08 predictions: The rise of RIAs and the 3D web at Aral Balkan (tags: ria 2008 web3d) [...]

  by links for 2007-12-10 « thebadtiming on 2007-12-10 23:21:25

• Hi Aral, Figured you'd disagree ;) heh. I take your points and understand your perspective and I based my opinion from interaction with folks in the Silverlight space (i.e. so it's only stuff I can comment on based off my own isolated experience.. in that is it accepted truth? i don't know, I’ll leave that to the history books to decide later). In that I am what I call "Evangelist without Borders" in that the level of interaction world-wide has quite a variety to it. In majority outcomes the point of contention between Flash and Silverlight as being the output wasn't the split in terms of deciding one or the other. Other factors, cost, capabilities, agency preference etc were all strong motivators in adoption of Silverlight. It's not black and white either, in that sure I accept the notion that some customers are savvy about which Runtime to adopt vs. which ones to forget, yet, unless both Adobe & Microsoft agree to publish research around motivators behind RIA plug-in adoption it can get somewhat opinionated (eg Emmys, NBA, Ice Cube etc would of weighed the consequences vs. Likelihood –aka Risk Analysis - and decided an outcome, Microsoft be damned as they have a brand to retain) Hybrid roles are something in which are becoming somewhat realistic. In that, the downside for us all is that the perception is centred around "You must choose, one or the other" resulting in 100% one way or another (which can be considered a forced fit). Yet the actuality of most Designers & Developers whom I have interviewed have stated "I just wanted a little bit of this and a little bit of that". To which I respond with "..well.. why don't you? what's stopping you?.." (Right Tool, Right Job, Right Time). Take for example a Video RIA. At present the cost benefits associated to WMV are significant enough to warrant a ROI study. Given that a lot of video today still is produced/encoded and deployed online in this format, one could agree that Silverlight is a snug fit against this. In that down tool RealOne/Windows Media Player via Web and up tool Silverlight. Now comes a point of contention. It's agreed that due to lack of controls and in many respects features found within Flash that are more suited to a agencies skills and capabilities (also there maybe swf's already produced that they aren't keen to retire yet in terms of re-usable components) then why not marry the two. Have a Flash centric GUI talking to Coldfusion etc via AMF whilst at the same time keeping existing ROI on Video infrastructure intact. I’m sure we’d love for it to be a 100% Silverlight story as that would complement our brand further, but in reality we aren’t ignorant of the fact that no company is ever really one brand ( we are many under the covers ) so, short term win, long term win. It's a win/win for both Adobe & Microsoft in many respects. I state this as I wouldn't rush to discount the hybrid approach, as I wrote my POC - Harmony for a reason to hint that it's not all about Red Team vs. Blue Team. Leave that annoyance to opinionated political fighters like me ;) heh I agree the perception is that we're "sponsoring" folks to build Silverlight, but that was initial seeding (all companies do it, and whilst folks believe we have big money bins out back, there is a limit to our seeding funds) to ask permission for agencies to consider our technology initially. Today, I receive countless emails from around the world asking for advice around Silverlight development, design and in many cases "help with pitches". This for me is a strong indicator that the seeding is winding down, and folks are embracing the technology (the marketing about the land rush is over, now it’s stake your claims and be quick about it..) There is quite a vibrant community with their heads down churning out Silverlight goodness. Now given our EULA forbids you to go live with a Silverlight 1.1 RIA today (due to the fact it's alpha and it could hurt you more than aid you in the future in terms of customer adoption) this I'd wager is also a contributing factor in why Silverlight is perceived as being "dormant". I predict 2008 will change this somewhat, and you'll see more and more RIA's based around Silverlight come out of the wood work. I state this as there are millions of Microsoft centric developers around the world whom have discounted Adobe's products (either due to not knowing the capabilities, deciding it doesn't fit within their existing investment models and lastly simply because they tried it and disliked it) hammering Microsoft's doors to "hurry up". It's a nice problem to have in all honesty as there is demand that's for sure, the trick is to now full fill that demand as soon as possible whilst emphasis on carefully as possible. I'd actually consider 2008 to be the year of RIA in that both Adobe & Microsoft's war chests are going to be opened up a lot more and this will be an enormous boost for the industry so much so the RIA Designer out there may find themselves in high demand more so. At any point regarding the Flex vs. Silverlight adoption points, I’d argue "Right Tool, Right Job, Right Time". I do however respect your opinions in this space Aral and I'll be keen to listen to more thoughts around this subject as I don't have all the answers at all, and I'm eager to prove my theories wrong as then I can look to see ways in which we can improve should you be dead on the money (we're always keen to cover some blind spots). - Scott Barnes RIA Evangelist Microsoft.

  by Scott Barnes on 2007-12-14 04:22:58

• Hi Aral, On paper, Silverlight should be a far superior product to Flash by the end of 2008. But anyone familiar with the stories of how VHS and the PC won out against superior products will know, having a superior product doesn’t make one an automatic winner.

  by ricardo on 2008-06-03 23:17:06

• Adobe are very designer-orientated and their developer tools are weak. Microsoft are very developer-orientated and their designer tools are weak. We are therefore likely to see Flash holding strong in flashy, "eye candy" aspects of the web, whereas Silverlight will likely gain strength in areas that require substantial programming, such as RIAs, online games etc. Which one - Flash or Silverlight - ultimately wins out will largely be determined by which one - Adobe or Microsoft - can overcome the weaknesses in their current tool sets.

  by David Arno on 2007-12-07 12:59:06

• Hi David, Microsoft may have some great development tools (Visual Studio comes to mind) but their software stack for Silverlight is currently very primitive. The weakest point of Silverlight (after its non-existent penetration rate), is that it doesn't have a standard set of controls like Flex does. Thus, I agree that creating RIAs in Silverlight will involve "substantial programming", mainly because developers will have to recreate the wheel until Microsoft puts out a standard set of controls. So that RIA project that requires a data grid will start off with two months of development to create the data grid control before work can begin on the application itself, whereas the whole app might have been completed in the same timeframe in Flex and deployed to a web where over 90% of users can view it. Silverlight, in its current form, is way too primitive to be taken seriously as a technology for creating RIAs. This is to be expected as it has only just reached version 1 and cannot possibly compete currently with the wealth of controls, frameworks, and tools available on the Flash Platform for Flash and Flex. That's why I stated that Silverlight will not have an important impact in 2008. However, depending on the road taken my Microsoft, it is definitely one to keep an eye on for 2009 and 2010. (And, of course, Adobe won't be taking a vacation in the interim so it is going to be interesting to see how the battle heats up!)

  by Aral on 2007-12-07 13:23:42

• Having said that, it all depends on when MS manage to get it out to developers, no whispers yet, but my guess of Jan is based on the sessions here which would indicate it must be before then(?): http://www.microsoft.com/uk/events/default.aspx?code=2

  by Richard Leggett on 2007-12-07 14:06:22

• Hey Aral, I'm glad to hear the dinner went well. Recently Microsoft announced Silverlight 2.0 due 2008, this certainly changed my opinions on the Silverlight/Flash/Flex comparison (it became quite clear its really a Silverlight/Flex comparison now for one). Feature-list here. I'm still of the opinion that in 2008 it will have almost no impact on people using Flash (and more importantly, *why* they are using it), and very little impact on people making RIAs in Flex, but it should have a significant impact on traditional web and AJAX developers, especially those companies (and there are quite some to say the least) that are predominantly Microsoft shops. It appears they are aiming to offer a huge technology stack (perhaps seen now as a subset of WPF which now makes the original moniker WPF/e make more sense). Some of this goes back to my rants(?) on AJAX, and in particular the lack of standards with regards to JavaScript and browser capabilities moving forward. Silverlight should present an increasingly appetising offer to those whose tools are getting a little dull. On the other hand it's pretty damn obvious that Flash and Flex could never be called "dull", they are getting sharper and shinier by the day. ;)

  by Richard Leggett on 2007-12-07 13:59:10

• Hi Richard, I believe Microsoft are being somewhat overly ambitious with their release dates. They released 1.0 several months ago and are now releasing 2.0? Sounds like a rushed product to me. I feel it will take several iterations before they can have a robust set of controls (remember how long it took on the Flash Platform?) Still, even if they hit their Q1 target for the controls, it will take time to train developers on those technologies and will people deploy RIAs without any penetration statistics and/or penetration (of course that game is somewhat chicken and egg but we know all too well on the Flash Platform the trouble you have in convincing clients to adopt a new plugin before it has reached very high levels of penetration).

  by Aral on 2007-12-07 14:57:32

• Economics will play a vital role for designer/developers to adopt a technology or set of tools. Silverlight closed source. Flex open source. Apart from that Silverlight looks like a FrontPage rework, we all remember what happened to that product.

  by Astor on 2007-12-09 18:53:23

• Silverlight 1.0 is rubbish as a RIA platform as it was never intended to be one. It is designed to do video mainly. Microsoft's plan is to get people using Silverlight for their videos and thus start the spread of Silverlight. I have no idea if the plan will work though. Silverlight 2.0 is simply the (more sensible) name for Silverlight 1.1, which has existed as a beta for a while as it was being developed in parallel with Silverlight 1.0. Yes it does lack a set of controls, but these are due early 2008. It is also .NET based, so people will be able to take existing C#/ VB.NET code and port their apps to Silverlight reasonably easily. And then there is the fact that .NET has started supporting PHP, Python, Ruby etc and so Silverlight will have a broad appeal to many web developers who may be looking to develop RIAs. And finally Silverlight 2.0 will appear on Linux and (possibly more importantly) embedded platforms such as WinCE without the huge license fees the Flash incurs on such platforms. On paper, Silverlight should be a far superior product to Flash by the end of 2008. But anyone familiar with the stories of how VHS and the PC won out against superior products will know, having a superior product doesn't make one an automatic winner.

  by David Arno on 2007-12-09 23:00:21

• I am with you. I think your predictions are more than right. The last months we have being seeing lots of RIAs with great quality. People making wonderfull RIAs about : Image Editors, Sales apps, Diagram tools, word processing... 2008 will be the big war year between Office Suites online. Buzzword was a start(?), and now the game is on.... About Papervision3D what can I say, is there anything more interesting in the Flash world in the last times??

  by Paulo Moreira on 2007-12-07 12:45:22

• [...] Web ‘08 predictions: The rise of RIAs and the 3D web at Aral Balkan Nice predictions. Mine- we’ll see more and more UIs that make users feel sea-sick. Not a good thing. (tags: UI RIA) [...]

  by James Governor’s Monkchips » links for 2007-12-07 on 2007-12-07 23:31:30

• those are some pretty bold predictions!

  by Investing & Passive Income on 2008-05-06 07:20:09

• Hi Scott, Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. I have to disagree with your point that "customers aren't the ones focusing on which hammer their builders use". In my experience, customers are very much focused on your choice of hammer when it comes to whether or not a plugin is used and I feel that is as it should be. Jeremy Keith said it best during his talk at Flash on the Beach last year while comparing AJAX and Flash: There is a continuum of web applications today, ranging from document-centric ones that are better served by plain HTML, to highly interactive, desktop-like applications that are better served by a technology like Flash. In the middle are many shades of gray and opportunities to implement progressive enhancement in the more document-centric applications. Depending on the type of application, the target audience and considerations such as accessibility (which Silverlight currently ignores), the choice of hammer is very important indeed. Furthermore, I feel that your analogy is flawed. Choice of platform is not the builder choosing her tools, it's the builder choosing the experience context and that's a fundamental decision that will shape the experience itself. A choice of tool would be whether the developer uses notepad, Visual Studio or TextMate. The issue of plugin penetration is also key. Microsoft is not currently publishing penetration statistics for the Silverlight plugin and, based on what I was told at the Silverlight night organized in Brighton this month, they currently do not know when they will start doing so. Without this, how can any client be expected to sign up to the platform? Also, I don't see hybrid Flash and Silverlight applications as a real-world use-case (although it makes a fun demo to see them running side-by-side). For the user, it would be a worst-case-scenario where they will be required to have not just one but two plugins installed to get an application working. Heck, we might as well throw a Java applet in the mix too and forget about the user altogether! Now I know that Microsoft is pursuing an interesting technique in getting development houses to develop with Silverlight by partnering with them and sponsoring development. That's an intelligent step as it is the creation of useful and fun applications that will drive plugin penetration. But, currently, I don't see why a development firm that isn't being sponsored by Microsoft would develop applications with it given that we have no penetration statistics whatsoever and given that there is a mature alternative in the form of Flash and, perhaps more importantly, Flex. IMHO, when making the platform choice for a highly interactive RIA today (with constraints for development time and budget, accessibility, and usability), it would not be in your client's interests if you chose Silverlight over Flex. Don't get me wrong, I am discounting the importance of Silverlight. But in all honesty, I don't see a proliferation of Silverlight applications on the web in 2008. Perhaps '09 and '10 once Microsoft starts publishing penetration statistics, the plugin starts gaining traction, and the toolset, libraries, and controls mature.

  by Aral on 2007-12-09 11:51:27

• Some recent news from Microsoft suggests that the "Silverlight is not going to have a widespread impact" prediction may prove wrong. The Beijing Olympics online content will all be in Silverlight. Covering the largest sporting event in the world is a pretty good way of having a big impact in my view! More details at http://www.davidarno.org/126

  by David Arno on 2008-01-08 13:05:17

• All I know is that w/in 2 hours I was able to create a custom, branded video player with 5 movies, that included 5 chapters for each movie, a still for each movie while it was loading--with the loaders of course--with all the appropriate controls that scroll the movies and chapters, etc. All this WITHOUT using a single line of code. All this in SilverLight w/in Expression Studio. With Flash, which I've been using since 4.0, I would've had to do a "lot" of Actionscript just to accomplish this. Adobe does not have any competitors so hopefully now they'll follow MS's lead.

  by dimitri on 2009-01-05 04:53:44

• Hi David, Perhaps I should have limited the scope of my prediction. I was speaking about impact in the RIA space but I realize that I didn't specifically state that. It's true that Microsoft is pushing Silverlight for video streaming at the moment and I'm sure that the Beijing Olympics being streamed via Silverlight will go a very long way to getting adoption for the player. However, I just don't see how it can have any impact in the RIA space -- at least with the current version. It looks like a one trick pony (does video) to me at the moment and doesn't have the necessary controls, etc. to make it a serious contender for RIAs. Then again, that's the thing with predictions. You can always be proved wrong. I'm definitely interested in seeing how this one plays out :)

  by Aral on 2008-01-09 12:19:58

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