Archive for FlashForward Conference
May 7, 2008 at 5:45 pm · Filed under 360|Flex, Flash, Flash on the Beach, FlashForward Conference, Flex
Some readers may remember my previous post on the costs of conferences, specifically Flash on the Beach and 360|Flex compared to FlashForward. In short, FlashForward was more expensive... by a landslide... even when factoring in the cost of an international flight and 2:1 exchange rates.
However, when Lynda.com sold FlashForward to Beau Ambur and Metaliq a few months back, I was hoping things might be changing. Surely they wouldn't keep the cost of attendance so high, would they? I even had the thought that if the price got down to the $400 to $500 range, I would consider attending once again. So when I received an email today announcing FlashForward 2008 San Francisco festival nominations were open and providing a link to the pricing information, I was excited to see if changes had indeed been made.
Sadly, I was disappointed. Yes, the prices seem to have went down slightly. But the early bird price is still $899, and the cost goes all the way up to $1099 for at-the-door registration. I guess this year Flash on the Beach (for which I have already bought my 2008 pass) only wins by $464 instead of $664. That's progress, right?
June 25, 2007 at 3:37 pm · Filed under Flash, FlashForward Conference, Flex, OSFlash
Every year I try to attend at least one large Flash conference, and today I was trying to decide which conference I wanted to attend this year: Flashforward or Flash on the Beach.
Both conferences will no doubt be worth attending -- last year's Flashforward was a great experience for me, and although I didn't attend, FOTB was touted as the best conference of the year in the Flash community. Both will have a very similar list of speakers and cover similar topics, offer plenty of time for networking, and undoubtedly offer the yearly recharge of interactive development passion. In fact, there are only two considerable differences: location and price. And when you are trying to convince your employer to pay, it all comes down to pricing.
I originally assumed, like most Americans would considering the strength of the British Pound to the Dollar, that a trip to Brighton for FOTB would be considerably more costly. But, as it turns out, it is $664 _cheaper_ to attend FOTB in the UK then it is to attend Flashforward in Boston. This amazed me, and I'm writing this post in hopes that Flashforward (and Lynda.com, the producers) will take notice at the discrepancy.
I calculated the $664 difference by factoring in the only sure costs in each location -- the conference pass, airfare, and hotel accommodations. Here is the breakdown:
Flashforward
Conference Pass: $1099
Airfare (Portland to Boston, continental.com): $600
Hotel (Conference Rate): $249/night x 5 = $1245
Total: $2944
Flash on the Beach
Conference Pass: $400
Airfare (Portland to London, continental.com): $880
Hotel (Hotels.com): $200/night x 5 = $1000
Total: $2280
$2944 - $2280 = $664
Now, obviously this isn't scientific as there are still costs like taxi fares, meals, incidentals and entertainment, but these costs would generally be the same no matter which conference you attend. I realize that the Dollar to British Pound conversion rate would skew things a bit due to the locations of the two conferences, but even if that skew was equal to $664, it still costs me the same to attend FOTB and get a free vacation to the UK.
FOTB can produce a conference equal to Flashforward's and still price their passes at less than half. Same speakers, same topics, similar community, and half the price. With conferences like FITC, Flashbelt and 360Flex all pricing themselves _way_ below Flashforward, and OSFlash offering conferences online for free, how long can they continue to charge $1100 to just get in the door?
[Update: The official FOTB blog has just picked up this post. See you at the conference next month!]
February 19, 2007 at 2:48 pm · Filed under Adobe, Flash, FlashForward Conference, Tech
It seems like "labs" sites are all the rage these days. Adobe has their popular labs site, and even firms like Big Spaceship have started a labs site. I just found out today that Comcast has been running their Comcast Interactive Media Labs since late 2005 without much fanfare.
The thing that surprised me most was that a lot of the cool interactive projects coming out of Comcast were developed and/or started in their media lab. For example, The Fan 3.0 was launched and won People's Choice at FlashForward 2006 in Austin.
Keep tabs on the cool happenings at Comcast here (http://labs.comcast.net). And if you have a Comcast internet account, be sure to sign in and take advantage of the awesome interactive offerings.
February 14, 2007 at 3:32 pm · Filed under Flash, FlashForward Conference, Flex, Web Apps
At FlashForward 2006 in Austin Wallop was all the rage. They threw an awesome kickoff party, were looking for all the Flash developers they could to help build 'widgets' for their platform, and everyone was blogging about how cool it was of an idea.
In the past few months I hadn't heard a word about Wallop. I was wondering what happened, and today I saw a blog post from Ryan Stewart entitled "Signs of life at Wallop". It helps to explain the lack of communication coming out of Wallop/Microsoft (where it was founded -- surprising, I know, considering it is developed fully in Flash).
But, I'm interested to hear if anyone is still using, or better yet developing for, Wallop. It looks like they may be re-developing in Flex and I'm sure with all the hoopla around Flex these days that they'll pick up some interest there.
Check out Ryan's post here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=262
October 24, 2006 at 11:37 am · Filed under Business, Design Inspiration, Flash, FlashForward Conference, Tech
Finally, Jobs was asked if he was worried about Microsoft's upcoming media player (Zune) and its "community" features:
In a word, no. I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.
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In a time when most corporations are effectively reducing the memorable experiences in our lives, Apple and Steve Jobs are thinking about enhancing those experiences. Brendan Dawes gave a great talk about this at FlashForward 06 in Austin, and ever since then I have been thinking more and more about where all of those daily experiences in my life have gone.
For instance, I am in the process of ripping all of my CDs to MP3 and storing them on a large external hard drive. For almost every CD I pickup I am reminded of an event that took place while I was listening to it, such as a warming up for a particular basketball game in college. Once I rip them into iTunes as a digital format, I'm not reminded of that experience nearly as often.
This idea goes even further because not only is this having an effect on me, but it is spreading to the population on a fairly grand scale. Keeping with the music theme, think about iPods and how many people now walk around with their ear buds in listening to music and thereby creating this lack of interpersonal interaction.
Kudos to Steve Jobs and Brendan Dawes for their efforts to bring the experiences back to our daily lives.
October 9, 2006 at 6:08 pm · Filed under FlashForward Conference
I came across this awesome video today of Jared Ficklin and a Ruben's Tube that he setup. Basically, he uses fire to create sound visualizations.
I met Jared at FlashForward in Austin a few months back when he was doing a lecture on sound visualizations in Flash. You may also recognize him from the very cool PBS show "Texas Ranch House".
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