One Adobe Flash Platform Services Layer To Rule Them All

Adobe’s work to simplify web application development and social network integration may have stepped up a gear this week with a number of new product announcements in the shape of Flash Builder 4, ColdFusion Builder and Flash Platform Social Service.

So let’s get to the guts and mention Flash Builder 4 as quickly as possible. It’s a jolly lovely Eclipse based development tool for rapidly building multi-platform rich Internet applications (RIAs) and there’s now improved coding and testing for more productive builds and intuitive app creation. OK – got it? Let’s move on.

Developers already know the above, so what is the issue at hand to be highlighted?

If there’s one thing that every web application worth its salt has to be able to show evidence of today, it is social network integration. The ability to link in with LinkedIn and to tether up with Twitter is worn like a badge, quite literally with a logo on the page.

So what’s the challenge?

Well, today’s Twitter might just be tomorrow’s Bulletin Board System and of the popular social networks that do exist, there is a lot to keep track of.

Specifically, developers find that they need to integrate with each separate, constantly changing social network service API to provide users access to multi networks.

Adobe has collaborated with Gigya, a “social optimisation platform for online business” (now there’s a new term), to create the Adobe Flash Platform Services Social service.

If you’re finding all those brand names and industry terms hard to decipher, the product is actually called SOCIAL and you can read more here on the Adobe Developer Connection.

Social claims to be able to help developers to integrate applications created with Flash Builder and Adobe Flash Professional with social networks. Despite the constantly changing social network APIs, Adobe says that “A single Flash Platform Services layer does the heavy lifting across multiple social networks. Additionally, the Social service will monitor each social network site to ensure changes to APIs do not break applications.”

There was also plenty of news this week on open source Flex 4 and ColdFusion Builder, but for Adobe (bless their cotton socks) 1600 words is not a magazine feature – it’s a press release. So I have tried to distill the most developer-centric flavour from one of this week’s stories.

If you prefer, next time I can cover the stuff that talks about, “Bringing business-critical web applications with a truly competitive edge from the web to the desktop with a creative, visual approach in a cleaner, more concise fashion to empower users with quality and interactivity in the end product.”

That was all in there too I promise.