Acrobat 8... yawn
Scoble wonders why there's no interest in the new Acrobat 8:
Then I went to Google Blog Search and Technorati and did searches for other bloggers who are covering the new Acrobat announcements. Nothing. Even CNET’s News.com has nothing up about it. You would think that at least someone would post the ceremonial “that sucks” kind of commentary. But, no, just silence. It’s like everyone is reading about the HP scandal and forgot that other stuff could happen.
Interesting. But if some new video service or a new Web 2.0 company or service were announced right now (even from my own company) it’d get covered all over the place.
Well, it's probably because people already know what Acrobat is, so a new version of it simply isn't that interesting (in the "breaking news" sense). As a Product Manager, I know very well how hard it is to get anyone excited about the next version of a product that's been around for years.
Oh, and about that video - a screencast would have been far, far more useful there - sure, have the intro with the Adobe PM, but then flip to a screencast. I'd rather see the product than watch camera zooming.
Comments
[Adam Vandenberg] September 18, 2006 9:35:42.775
Also, deep in our hearts, we're all thinking, "Oh please, not another version of that thing. Hopefully it won't be backwards-hostile."
The PDF browser plug-in STILL hangs the browser (Firefox), crashes it, keeps a hidden window open even if you close all the visible ones (sometimes preventing you from launching the browser again), etc.
Acrobat already lets me do everything I need to do with PDFs: Print out DMV and IRS forms.
Screencasts just aren't workable
[Robert Scoble] September 18, 2006 14:23:21.422
The reason I get access to stuff like this is I get in and then I get out. Putting software on someone's machine, trying to record it while he or she gives a demo, then figuring out how to get the files to a computer I own is simply unworkable, sorry. Not gonna happen. I wish I could make it happen, but I don't see a good way to make it happen.
People like this usually have press interviews stacked up back to back and won't let you touch their demo machines.
Acrobat just not interesting...
[Bill] September 18, 2006 22:54:19.432
Acrobat just isn't that interesting. For the most part, it functions like a photocopy for other, more interesting, programs. I doubt that many people that have it ever use it for anything more than making neutral representation of other work. I use it mainly for welding together Powerpoints (in horizontal format with different templates) and other documents (vertical format) into one document. And the new version costs over $400 I think? I find it uninteresting and too expensive for what I (and I expect a lot of other people) use it for. Print media people may disagree. Also, it may be worth having it if it's in a bundle with the other programs...