Andrew Shorten @ Adobe

For the last couple of years Adobe has been one of the main sponsors of the Future of Web Apps conference in the UK; this year, in addition to being a sponsor we wanted to do something practical that would help an entrepreneur bring an idea for a future web application to life.

So, in partnership with the conference organisers, we’re looking to reward the best idea for a web application that could be deployed using Adobe AIR with £5K, to fund some of the development work and help make the application a reality.

All you have to do to be in with a chance of securing the prize money is tell us how you would use Adobe AIR, either to create a new application or to extend the reach of an existing application to the desktop. 

Entry forms, submission information and contest rules can be found on the Future of Web Apps site.

If you need some inspiration for how you might use Adobe AIR, check out my previous entry ‘10 AIR applications that you can’t live without‘ or visit refreshingapps.com for more AIR applications.

The session I presented at BarCampBrighton 08 this weekend was entitled ‘10 AIR apps you can’t live without’ and aimed to highlight some of the great applications that have been built using AIR that you might actually use on a daily basis.

The presentation is below, together with links to all the AIR applications that I demonstrated – hopefully you’ll find some of the 10 useful; let me know if there are other apps you’re using that you think should be on the list.

BarCampBrighton Presentation (PDF, 1.4Mb)

Personal productivity:

• Simple Tasks, a simple task/to-do list manager. Developer: Jack Slocum
• Klok, personal time tracking application. Developer: Rob McKeown

Dashboards:

• Google Analytics, desktop reporting suite. Developer: Nicolas Lierman

Rich Media:

• Finetune Desktop, streaming music service. Developer: Finetune
• mooFlair, video player and download manager. Developer: Patrick Tai

Tools:

• Bee, wordpress blog editor. Developer: Adobe Romanian Team
• Blasamiq Mockups, wireframe/UI mockup tool. Developer: Peldi Guilizzoni

Communication:

• Twhirl, desktop client for Twitter, Friendfeed, etc. Developer: Seesmic
• TweetDeck, desktop client for Twitter. Developer: Ian Dodsworth

News Readers:

• Snackr, RSS news reader. Developer: Narciso Jaramillo
• Desktop Keeley, news and entertainment from the Sun. Developer: Glue London