Technology has been working its way into the minds of almost everyone it seems these days. As a developer, it’s particularly encouraging to see many of the technologies I work with and develop for rising to the top. In particular, I am a new convert to blogging (formerly known as Content Management where I did lots of work) and Social Networking (formerly known as Instant Messaging, Blogging, Contact Management, etc.). The core acknowledgement is that technology is providing a new level of enablement from the “Geeks to the Greeks” to quote the old college saying.

Macromedia has coined the phrase “Occassionally Connected” in relation to the push for “Rich Internet Applications” — applications that leverage dynamic, flexible user interfaces, network-aware, service-oriented architectures, and connected “consumers”. Ironically, Macromedia has released a new “platform” of sorts called Macromedia Central. According to their site:

Macromedia Central gives people the ability to interact with distributed information in a more meaningful and relevant way. By managing your personal information outside the browser Central enables a more responsive, immediate, and convenient way to interact with the sources you need on a daily basis. Central is a personal interface that can be downloaded and customized based on the information that matters to you. Regardless of whether you are online or off, Central allows you to access, filter, and interpret content and share data across applications in meaningful ways.

Central provides Macromedia Flash developers with a pre-built infrastructure for creating, distributing and selling applications. Developers can use their existing skills and the ability of Central to store and share data locally to build a new class of responsive Rich Internet Applications. The consistent Central deployment environment, support for payment processing, and ready availability on any computer empower individual developers to distribute applications directly to end users.

Source: Macromedia Central Product Page

Interestingly enough, here in is the hidden promise: “Build It and They Will Come”. Macromedia has released version 1.0 of its platform under the guise of a “Developer” release. With this moniker, MM has been able to excuse itself of the majority of the marketing responsibility embedded in this promise as it gears up developers. This is a Catch-22, of course, so one can’t blame MM entirely. Without applications, there will be nothing to attract consumers to Central and without consumers, developers won’t have a desire to develop. Fortunately, developers are easily hyped and have in many ways taken the bait and jumped on the bandwagon.

So what’s the problem? Well, the major concern is illustrated by a post from a Flash Developer today titled “Earning $120000 with a Macromedia Central app?… more? (wtf???)”. For the most part, actionScriptHero (asH) does a quick profit analysis on the development of an AIM add-on application that could be marketed to AIM users utilizing Central’s unique integration API. asH and I have had a little back and forth on the matter, but I think he does prove that there is a good potential for this market. Of course, this may be based on three potentially overlooked forces`:

• Build the Community, Not the Members — although the Macromedia Central application will undoubtedly reach a large audience to say the least, Macromedia Central, as it currently is implemented, markets the Central Community more so than the Central Developer. This sounds incredibly close to the design of, say, Google. The hub generates the majority of the traffic for itself, stakes a claim by selling eyeballs or platform-specific “service charges”, and in exchange introduces consumers to Developer X’s content (or application).
• User Behavior Is Difficult To Change — it seems that many people think consumers think in terms of “applications”. Macromedia’s design of the system seems centered on the notion that users have an inherent need to “find” applications. But are we that easily shaped? If I wasn’t a developer, would I really be nearly as concerned about the applications I run? I’m not sure. Most end users I know are need driven, not function driven. I need a way to send Instant Messages, I ask my friends, they tell me get AIM. I need to write documents, I ask my friends, Microsoft Word is the leader. As opposed to “I need to be able to track message history” so I search for Instant Messengers with this function and find Trillian. And don’t forget what Danah said about “Configuring the User”.
• Virii Are Hard To Create — as Seth Godin has identified, and as I have written about previously, the world is now full of marketing messages, value propositions, and hollow promises. Standing out in a crowd requires nothing short of a Purple Cow, a remarkable concept executed at unseen levels from start to finish. Developer zeal can often lead to myopic views of many situations simply because of their closeness to the content and its execution. As the wealth of applications grows, how exactly does one create anything more than a simple listing if not through marketing?

So I guess that’s one context of the “Casually Connected” and its implications on two audiences, developers and consumers. Interestingly enough, Anil Dash recently commented (“While We Weren’t Looking” ) on another context for “Casually Connected” — public awareness of Internet technology, specifically blogging. As Anil notes:

I’ve been arguing for a long time that, for all the hype, weblogs have barely made an impact with regular people in any appreciable way. Most people have still never heard of them and don’t know what the word “blog” means. But watching TV last night made me think that perhaps we’re finally making some progress.

[…]

The word blog was only barely mentioned once in the intro for the show, and only as part of the introduction to Sullivan, but the presence of the medium was undeniable on the show.

[…]

I suppose none of this is news, we’ve never yet had a time in the weblog realm when the medium has been getting less popular, but it seems worth noting that, while we weren’t looking, we started to cross over to that other 95% of people that have never heard of blogs. I can’t help but be excited to find out how they participate and what they think of our medium.

Source: Anil Dash

The crux of this discussion was that the overall awareness of blogging has grown and spread to an ever-increasing audience. Currently, it appears to be gaining more and more momentum and lacks only a few “official” endorsements before moving to the next level of acceptance by the Early Majority.

However, I was most enlightened by the series of comments that flew out after Anil’s post. They fell into two major categories: Markedly Against vs. Sorta Supporting.

In the Markedly Against category, this quote seems representative:

In all honesty, I don’t think blogs will grow in popularity much more than they already are. Look at us, blog users. We’re all “technical types.” To put it another way, we’re geeks, nerds, dorks, etc. Before we had our blogs we ran dial-in modem bulletin board systems (BBS’s) years back.

As opposed to this:

There’s no doubt that bloggign started out as a techie playground, but the biggest growth I can see is in the literary world where every frustrated writer gets instant publication and gratification. If they’re anyway good they might even find that signing up for Adsense will buy then a whisky at the end of the month. The polical and social commentator also has a public. Like everything else, time will filter out the dross, and those with a loyal public will survive. There’s always space for someone who captures the zeitgeist

Clearly, there’s some other forms of “management” required in the process, .. be it process or reputation to ensure that things don’t go awry too soon and collapse the entire effort. Either way, this context has show “Casually Connected” as seen from the eyes of three audiences: The Users (bloggers, content creators, etc.), The Officials (press, media, public opinion), and Anti-Users.

Indeed we’re growing to be a “Casually Connected” community. I’m not sure anyone is aware of how many moving parts and divergent opinions that really requires wrangling.