For everyone who has been emailing about my TwitterCamp application or leaving comments that aren’t being moderated, I just wanted to let you know that I am currently on vacation with my wife in beautiful New Zealand and will not be back until May 7th. I will be sure and catch up with my online correspondence when I get back, but for now I am just going to enjoy the amazingly beautiful land around me and try suck in the fresh air!

It has begun. Don’t you hear that? It is the marching on of the great advertising behemoths of the world. It seems that now they are targeting your news reader and web based news aggregators. I can’t say that I am surprised. We all knew that syndicated news feeds would eventually become a medium for marketers to reach a very targeted audience. The question is, will this be done tastefully?

There is no doubt that some people think that all sites should be ad free. I don’t believe that is really an intelligent answer to the question of adding ads to web sites. These are usually the same people that don’t want to pay for the content either. So, how are the content providers to make money? I think advertising definitely has its place as long as it is done in the right way. Google has done a good job of this. Although I would say that I rarely click on one of the infamous Google ads, I have been found on occasion to click the link. Part of the reason is because of how tastefully the ads are placed most of the time. They do not distract from the main content and usually are very targeted to the page I am visiting. I have a sense of achieving a balance with the site I am visiting. I realize that they need to make a living, and I put up with it as long as they don’t throw it in my face.

So, what about ads in news feeds? I always thought it was a bit strange that I could take their content, format it the way I want in my feed reader, and basically have no need for the site and their advertisement. Obviously the content providers see this as a problem. What have they done to correct this? They insert the ad in the feed so you will see it whether you are on their site, or viewing the content in you news reader or aggregator.

I think there is definitely room for abuse of this new advertising medium. Many content providers only provide a snippet of information in the feed in hopes to entice you to visit their actual site. Their is nothing wrong with this practice in general, but when you do this the viewer will see the ads on the main site. So, when you try to add an ad to the feed in this case, it is similar to ‘double dipping.’ Viewers now see the ad in the feed and on the site providing the feed.

On the other hand, when the feed provides the complete content of the article in the feed (as I do on this site), adding an ad to the feed is just recouping the lost views you would have received had the viewer visited the site to read the entire article.

So, I think this boils down to good practice. I can see a future where I might very well add ads into my feed. But, what I would do in that case is probably provide two feeds. One feed would be short excerpts without ads, and the other would be full articles with ads. Most web based news aggregators, such as MXNA 2.0, would probably use the feed without ads. Whereas, if you were using an news reader on your desktop, you might want to use the feed with the full article that contains an ad.

I am curious though, what are your thoughts? Does this seem like a good compromise to you?

I won’t really comment on the deal yet. There is plenty of information out there already on the various news sources. But be sure to check out Mike Chambers post regarding the deal here.

Although many of you may not have been able to attend the Sneak Peaks session at MAX 2004, you should have been able to view the video my brother posted. One of the items I showed at the ‘Sneaks’ was a Flex based application I built running in Central. This application, which I dubbed FAB (Flex Amazon Browser), allows the user to browse the Amazon.com catalog of products, cache items, read reviews, and receive alerts when items change. It runs in both the browser and Central, and really shows off how exciting this new technology is. I put this project together a month or two ago as a demo internally and now I am going to make it available on my site. I should have it up by the end of the week. Until then, I have posted some links on how you can build Flex apps that run in both the browser and the desktop using Macromedia Central.

• White Paper: Developing Desktop Applications with Macromedia Flex by Waleed Anbar
• Central 1.5 SDK
• Macromedia Central SDK for Flex
• Advanced RIA engineering: applications that run in the Browser and in Central by Dirk Eismann

Head over to my brother’s blog and check out the MAX 2004 Sneak Peak session video he took. Although it doesn’t catch the entire session (which went really well), he was able to tape the Flash Player, Flash Authoring, Flex, and Central demos. This was the first time the Flash Authoring demos were shown publicly, and I think they were received really well. I showed off some of the prototypes the Central team has come up with and they also seemed to generate a lot of buzz. Anyways, head over to Josh’s blog and enjoy sucking down some of our server’s bandwidth :)

Just figured I would make the obligatory ‘heading to MAX’ post :) I should be there in a few hours, I am on the plane right now. See you all soon!

Well, first Grant did it… then my brother Josh did it… and I just couldn’t resist!

This is our first Halloween here in San Francisco, and although we are not down in the Castro tonight (apparently they are expecting over 300,000 people down there this year), we are definitely trying to get into the spirit.

So, have you ever wondered what its like inside the hallowed halls of Macromedia? Have you ever wanted to ask one of the engineers something about that product you love so much? Ever wondered who it is that is working behind the scenes? I know I did before I worked here. Lately I have become somewhat accustomed to the idea that if I have a question about the Flash Player, I can walk over a row and talk to an engineer who designed the feature. I have gotten to know many of the amazing people who work here and it has provided a lot of insight into the real vision that the company has. I have also been able to have a lot of fun, learning the fun little quirks of the Macromedia culture, just like any workplace has.

So, I thought I would start to crack open the door a little. If you have any question at all, whether technical or quirky, please submit it to questions[at]danieldura[dot]com and I will answer them! Well, maybe not every single one, there may be to many for that. But, I will pick one day a week (maybe Friday) and answer one or more of the questions, provide photos if possible, and for technical questions I may be able to con one of our engineers into answering the question directly.

This is meant to be both fun and informative. So here are a few examples of questions you can ask:

- Who has the coolest cube at Macromedia?
- Where do you guys eat lunch?
- Who is the product manager for the Flash Player team?
- Can you tell me how to use the X feature of X product?
- Or anything!

What you can’t ask:
- When is the next version of X coming out?

So, you are probably wondering if there is any incentive to doing this? Well, I can’t promise anything, but I do have some random pieces of Macromedia schwag laying around that I can definitely part with. So, if your question(s) gets answered, I will try and send you something.

So, here is your chance, ask away, submit as many questions as you like…. questions[at]danieldura[dot]com

Unless you didn’t realize already, MAX this year happens to occur right on top of the November election. That means that if you are going to MAX and are a US citizen over the age of 18, you need to 1) register to vote, and 2) either get an absentee ballot or vote in the early election if your state has one. I know that in San Francisco, the last day to register is Monday (October 18th). Also, early elections have started here. On my way into work today, I walked the extra two blocks off my normal path to City Hall, registered to vote, and submitted my ballot at the same time. Man does it feel great! Anyways, make sure and check out the link below for more election information:

Macromedia MAX Election Info