The API is likely to lead to some really fun capabilities. Imagine all the accessibility and beauty of Adobe AIR, combined with the real-world location and frictionless data transfer capabilities of NFC. Hot.

Android devices have NFC APIs, but presumably such capabilities baked into AIR would enable a new level of ease and power for developers seeking to build apps that let users swipe their phones over tags to register their locations, perform transactions and take other actions still yet to be determined.

The other side of the story is that NFC may never catch on widely and Adobe AIR is not loved by all, either. Nothing is perfect though and this might be pretty good.

For end users, the availability of AIR means, simply put, new apps to try. Searching for "Adobe AIR" in the Market will now reveal a selection of apps that are built with AIR.

If you're one of the fortunate Froyo recipients, then you can download AIR apps now. Adobe's Serge Jespers recommends Qrossfire, Gridshock and Chroma Circuit from Bowlerhat Games. You can find others by searching on Cyrket for "Adobe AIR." A couple of non-game apps which caught our attention are Flickoid, a Flickr slideshow app and Queue Manager, an Android app for managing your Netflix Queue. Let us know if you've found others you like.

Developers, Want In?

According to Adobe, to get your AIR apps into the Android Market, you should do the following:

1. Get the SDK from the prerelease program.
2. Build the app using your preferred tool (see list above).
3. Package the app with the AIR SDK as an APK file (an update for the Package Assistant Pro is arriving today)
4. Publish the app to the Android Market

Adobe's Ryan Stewart notes that any user who installs an AIR app without AIR installed will be shown a screen like this which directs them to download the AIR runtime.

Adobe, meanwhile, is focusing on the other up-and-coming smartphone platform, Google's Android OS, with the launch of their "AIR for Android" offering. With this and the newly announced Flash Player 10.1, wannabe mobile developers don't need to learn specialized code, but can instead leverage their existing development skills to build Flash and AIR-based applications. They can then have those apps run anywhere: PCs, Macs, Linux and mobile...including, surprisingly, the iPhone.

The AIR for Android development platform allows designers and developers to use their existing skills in coding for AIR on the desktop to build standalone applications that run on the mobile Android operating system, found on devices like the Droid, the myTouch 3G, and the G1. With AIR, developers can include mobile-specific functionality in their devices including multi-touch, accelerometer input, GPS, screen orientation and gestures.

Already, Adobe has several developers on board. A company blog post today shows a selection of some of the first AIR-built Android apps, all games, including iTunes App Store classics like Alchemist, FickleBlox, Gridshock, Chroma Circuit, Red Hood, South Park Avatar Creator and Su (iTunes links).

Flash 10.1

In addition to the AIR for Android announcement, Adobe also debuted the Flash Platform 10.1 beta, now available to developers and content providers worldwide. With Flash, developers can not only build mobile applications for Android, but can build apps that run anywhere: desktops, laptops, netbooks and smartphones. All the major smartphone players (save one) will support Flash, including Android, RIM BlackBerry, Symbian, Palm's webOS and Windows Mobile. It will now also be available on LiMo devices, an independent and open smartphone platform with a Linux-based operating system at its core.

Flash isn't just about the apps, either. It's also used for website content display and HD videos, like those found on the popular U.S. TV portal, Hulu. Sling Media, makers of the Slingbox hardware, devices that let you watch live TV playing in one location on a remote receiver, also use Flash as part of their three-screen solution which delivers video to TVs, laptops, and mobile devices.

Flash for iPhone: the Workaround

Despite all the announcements, which lay solid ground for Adobe's continued relevance and importance in the ever-changing mobile world, the company has not forgotten about Apple. Although sour grapes could have easily had the company turn their back to the popular iPhone OS platform, Adobe did just the opposite: they made it easy for their developers to build for iPhone too. Using the Packager for iPhone software, announced previously at Adobe MAX 2009, developers can export Flash code as iPhone apps.

With these tools, developers can essentially write once and deploy anywhere - as AIR or Flash creations for the desktop or mobile web or as apps for any mobile device including Android or iPhone.

Will Apple Cave?

Apple's standoff against Flash has gained more public exposure with the recent announcement of the Apple iPad. Even consumers who don't pay careful attention to technology news will soon discover the iPad's shortcomings when iPad-launched websites don't include streaming video, content doesn't display as expected and video portals like Hulu are inaccessible.

While purists may feel the same as Apple CEO Steve Jobs when it comes to Flash's expulsion from the iPhone/iPad platform, (notably that it's "buggy" and will soon be replaced by HTML5, an upcoming standard that can provide streaming video, too), the reality is that the new HTML5-enabled web won't be built overnight. In the meantime, developers and consumers alike want solutions for the content they expect to access when mobile - that being the web, the whole web, the fully functioning web. It's here that Adobe intends to deliver. Their goal is to have every platform but Apple supporting native Flash and AIR, while still supporting iPhone through a workaround. Will Apple eventually concede to this power play where everyone supports Flash but them? It's impossible to tell, but Adobe certainly isn't afraid to lay the pressure on thick.

But recently, we've begun to question AIR's longevity. Now don't get us wrong - many of our favorite apps (TweetDeck, Tumbleweed, Yammer, etc.) are built using Adobe AIR. However, there's no reason why these apps couldn't just run in a browser instead...and that might even be a better place for them. 

When we think about AIR apps today, one of the top apps that comes to mind is TweetDeck, the multi-columned Twitter application which includes much sought-after features not built into Twitter.com's own web site such as groups, photo-sharing, and saved searches. Yet despite everything we love about TweetDeck, we wonder why it can't exist simply as an online application. What purpose does running TweetDeck in Adobe AIR serve? It's not AIR's cross-platform abilities - after all, web browsers are the original cross-platform apps -and it's not that AIR is notably faster than an online version either. Probably the only reason for TweetDeck on AIR is that when the app was first built, AIR was the hot new thing. Now that the company has settled on the platform, they're just sticking with it.

Yet on the flip side, another popular Twitter client and originally an AIR-only app has gone the other direction. TweetDeck competitor Seesmic, once solely an Adobe AIR desktop application, is now offering a web-based version. Not only is the online app more than functional, it's also being lauded as "the best Twitter browser interface yet." More importantly, it goes to show that you don't need a desktop application to have a speedy, pretty, and useful app.

Streaming Video: Yeah, We Can Do that Online

Outside of the Twittersphere, other AIR apps on our radar in the past have included video-streaming programs like Adobe Media Player, AOL Top 100 Videos, and the YouTube-streaming DeskTube. Incidentally, today DeskTube is launching a new beta of their application, claiming "performance improvements" that now make their player "netbook-ready."

This immediately got us thinking: why do we need netbook-ready AIR applications? Maybe I don't speak for everyone, but my netbook is currently running XP and the only "app" I've installed is Google Chrome. With this fast, lightweight web browser and its pop-out tabs, desktop apps all of sudden seem so passé.

Besides what does DeskTube do (or any of these video-streaming AIR apps for that matter) that the web cannot? In DeskTube's case, in addition to playing YouTube videos, it includes a search feature, top video lists, a built-in uploader, and it lets you share videos via Twitter and Facebook. All those things can be done via YouTube.com right now, so what's the benefit of AIR?

Is the Future RIAs or Just Better Browsers?

Adobe AIR launched back in February of 2008, a time when browsers seemed either hopelessly out-of-date (IE7) or bloated with a plethora of add-ons (Firefox). We saw these little internet apps that could sit on our desktop connecting us to web services as truly amazing creations. But then in September, Google launched their Chrome browser and nothing has been the same since.

At first, we railed against Chrome's lack of extensions and lack of support for RSS among other things, but after a while (and once we filled up our bookmark bar with add-on like bookmarklets), we got over it. Surprisingly, you can live quite well without loading down your browser with extensions. In fact, the only thing that Chrome desperately needs is a Mac version so our non-PC friends can dump the open-source Chromium and use the real thing.

You see, once you "go Chrome" it's hard to switch back. As much as we fear handing yet another bit of our online life to Google, Chrome is where it's at now. Firefox now seems heavy and so much slower than before. Instead, we're popping out tabs to watch sites like FriendFeed and Twitscoop update in real-time. We're switching from online mode to offline courtesy of Google Gears in our Gmail and Calendar. And we're wondering why on earth we need another AIR app.

Today, AIR almost seems like a stop-gap between the heavy web browsers of the past and the speedy WebKit-powered browsers of the future...browsers like Chrome and whatever else comes next.

But sometimes there's an issue with displaying the raw, unfiltered tweets in this way: they can be disruptive. All it takes is one Twitter user trying to be funny - or, worse, a troll saying something rude - to take the discussion off course. Now there's a new solution to deal with this problem: Paratweet.

Using Paratweet

After signing up for a Paratweet account, you create a new event, set up some keywords or hashtags to monitor, and you can even enter an onscreen question for the audience to respond to, if desired.

As the tweets begin to stream in, you simply approve or reject them by clicking the green plus sign or red X as necessary. If you don't want to manually moderate tweets, you can choose to auto approve them instead. After you have a few tweets approved, you hit the button marked "Live Display Control" to start streaming the approved tweets to the "Live Display Application."

This "Live Display Application" is an Adobe AIR app designed just for Paratweet and it's meant to be run on the computer connected to the projector, LCD, or CCTV. Also, because you log in to the AIR app with your Paratweet account to pull the relevant tweets, you don't have to perform the moderation on the same PC as the one being used for display, although you certainly could.

Why Paratweet?

Paratweet isn't the first application to deliver Twitter moderation functionality - Twubs, for example, also offers a live events app with this capability. However, Paratweet offers a couple of extra features which gives it an edge.

For one, it includes a profanity filter which you can turn on or off as desired - an item that was definitely on the wish list of pastors who wanted to use Twitter during their sermons or other church events, like youth group meetings. It also links the moderation app and display app via a secret code for extra security in order to make sure no one but those approved to do so can moderate the tweets. The code is unique to each event.

Unlike using search.twitter.com, Paratweet lets you track multiple search terms or hashtags at once. As the tweets come in, you can optionally play or pause the stream - helpful if the speaker wants to respond to something on the screen without the distraction of more tweets streaming by.

Unfortunately, all this Twitter goodness doesn't come cheap. Paratweet offers two pricing plans: $299 for 6 months and one event (which you can use over and over) or $599 for 6 months and 3 separate events. The $599 plan also includes the onscreen question feature, something unfortunately not found in the less expensive plan. Alternately, you can save by purchasing a yearly license for $999.

To try Paratweet for yourself, you can sign up here.

Installing Facebook for Adobe AIR

Installing the Facebook AIR application is pretty straightforward. After downloading and clicking "install" to get it started, you have to enter in your account information for a one-time authentication process with Facebook.

You then have to give the app permission to access your News Feed and Wall. (You should probably say "Allow Access" to this question since that's the whole purpose of the app!)

For the last step, you have to click "Allow Publishing" in order for your posts and comments to be published without prompting you.

Using the Application

Now that the application is installed, you can start enjoying it. It's a really basic application - no bells and whistles here. It's just the stream, nothing more, nothing less. You can't search for friends or filter the list to display only your friends in a particular pre-defined list.  In fact, you can't do much of anything but "like" and comment on the posts that stream by. You also can't force it to refresh on your own, but it will refresh automatically as your friends post new updates.

A box at the top asks "what's on your mind?" and you can answer by posting a new status message and then clicking "Share." However, unlike the status update box on Facebook.com, you can't include a link, photos, or video - just text. Again, very basic stuff here.

But Is it Worth Using?

The short answer for those reading this blog is probably going to be a "no."

You see, whether or not you're going to find this application useful is going to depend on how you use Facebook. If you've been careful only to add the people whose updates you really care about to your Friend list, it's possible that you might enjoy what seems like a more personal, quieter version of your usual Twitter application - and one that includes your "real" friends - you know, those guys who say they "just don't get Twitter?"

But in all honesty, it's exactly those folks (the Twitter-avoiders) who are more likely to enjoy an application such as this. It's simple to the point of being almost too basic. That's why among the tech elite and early adopters, the standalone Facebook AIR app probably won't gain much traction. Especially when we already have applications that combine the Facebook stream with our Twitter streams. Apps like Seesmic and TweetDeck do this, but they also let us do a lot more advanced configurations, view manipulation, filtering, and searches, too.

For us, we'll stick with our fancy tools, but we wouldn't be surprised if this basic app gained a little popularity outside the tech elite bubble.

The way that Nomee's CEO Kevin Mokarow describes his new Adobe AIR application is that it lets you follow "people, not web sites." This is accomplished through the creation and exchange of "Nomee cards." In your card, you enter in your contact information and your social networking profiles from sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and hundreds more - anything with an RSS feed is supported. By creating Nomee cards for select groups, you can specify who gets to see what information. For example, if you want to share your card by posting it to your blog, you may want to include your Twitter, FriendFeed, and MySpace information, but not your Facebook profile. For your close friends, however, you could share a separate Nomee card which contains your Facebook profile info, too.

Nomee also provides pre-built cards for certain high-profile persons including celebrities, sports players, and the occasional politician (yes, it's Barack Obama). Anyone can subscribe to these cards just as anyone can subscribe to yours - and you don't have to reciprocate by accepting their card in return. It's entirely a one way experience.

Within the Nomee application the cards can be organized into groups and clicking on any user's information will display the number of updates per service in a very iPhone-esque fashion. You can also view a stream of that person's most recent updates across all their networks.

Some Issues

Obviously, keeping track of all your friends and colleagues in Nomee could be very inefficient since you have to click on users one-by-one to see their respective streams. The only other option for seeing friends' updates is turning on the desktop alerts - a feature you'll either love or hate. If you only have a few contacts, it may be nice to get the occasional pop-up, but most of us would be overrun with alerts.

The company intended this application to be a way to stay tuned into what your friends and other contacts are up to, but outside of those pop-ups, its interface makes this relatively time-consuming and inefficient. However, in playing with the application ourselves, we saw the potential for it to become a social address book. Of course, transforming the app from a stream-based aggregator to an address book would require some additional work on the company's part.

Still, the idea is intriguing - an address book that's filled not only with traditional contact info, but also with the status updates and other social data produced by that contact across the social networking arena. That could actually be a useful desktop application. Add a mobile sync feature and there could really be something there.

In order for this to come to pass, though, Nomee would have to add a lot more features. For example, it would have to allow you to build contacts on your own and it should let you accept vCards from others which you could then customize by entering in things like their Twitter username, etc. Supporting a standard like vCard is important because you can't assume that everyone is going to be creating these "Nomee cards."

At the moment, Nomee is somewhere in between web-based aggregation portals like FriendFeed (or, these days, Facebook's stream) and desktop-based AIR apps like TweetDeck's Twitter-tracking tool. The company needs to decide how committed they are to being an aggregation tool versus a social contact organizer. If it's the former, the current iteration somewhat fails for anyone with a decent amount of contacts to follow because it's just inefficient to track updates with this app. But if it's the latter, after some work Nomee could become a useful way to pull up contact information while also seeing a person's latest social activity.

We suppose that, to a point, you can use Nomee in this way right now. However, you're restricted to those who already have Nomee cards - which includes very few "real" people at the moment. (All you have are celebrity "news makers.") And without real people to follow, there isn't much you can do with a social application.

Let's get back to Skimmer, now with our eyes open to the design side. We can mention that it's not extremely fast, that it lacks the ability to re-tweet, that the icons are small and somewhat mysterious, and that (in some modes) it takes up a large amount of screen real-estate. But those qualms are almost beside the point when you consider that it is presenting information from multiple sources in a way that has never been realized before. In fact, I am guessing the designers were going for the word unprecedented. The tile-based layout, the unique font that is both modern and legible, the smooth updates from one mode to another all belie a careful attention to detail that is all too often lacking on other tools in their haste to support everything under the sun.

We mentioned that Fallon is releasing Skimmer along with a broader image push, and you can see this on their site.  Each page carries over the same tile-based concept, cross-fading slideshow effects and generous space given to text areas. You might think all this design work is a waste of time, but think about the last time you saw the 'future crime' interface in Minority Report. You were impressed, right? I can guarantee you, that interface was not conceived as data-driven. It's pure, unadulterated design work.

KonoLive's focus is on sharing to-do lists with a small group of friends or colleagues. Adding tasks and sharing your lists with other users is very easy and KonoLive offers everything from basic functions like establishing due dates to a live chat feature to discuss a certain item. KonoLive also integrates nicely with Google Docs and Box.net. Your lists are cached on your own machine, but also stored on KonoLive's servers. Sadly, though, you can't access your lists directly from KonoLive's web site.

One thing we don't like about KonoLive is that it automatically creates a new Box.net account for you. While we are big fans of Box.net, KonoLive does not inform you about this until you suddenly get a welcome message from Box.net. Also, the KonoLive window can not be resized, and the application seems a bit sluggish at times and does take up an inordinate amount of memory.

Tasck

In many ways, Tasck is the complete opposite of KonoLive. It has a minimalist AJAX user interface that allows you to perform a total of three actions: add tasks, delete tasks, and mark them as done. To mark a task as important, you simply capitalize the first letter.

Besides that, there really isn't much else to do - which might be a good thing, because the service lets you focus on your to-do list without getting in your way. However, it would be nice if you could re-order your tasks or edit them afterwards.

With Queued, you can quickly access and modify your Netflix queue from your desktop, search for movies to add to your queue, rate movies, and you can even use the app to launch and view Instant Watch movies.

Since Adobe AIR lets the app run in the background, you can leave it running until you need it and when you return, there's no need to launch a browser and sign into Netflix - it's all right there for you. The app also alerts you when Netflix ships one of your movies so you know what's coming. And with AIR's offline capabilities, Queued lets you interact with it even when you have no internet connection. When the connection returns, your data will be automatically synced back to Netflix.

The Technical Details

On the Dojo side, the app uses a single HTML file for the main window, dAIR for Dojo/AIR integration, dijit for layout, unobtrusive behavior implementation using dojo.behavior, dojox.dtl for most widget templating, drag and drop for queue re-ordering, various animations for polish, and Dojo's build system.

On the AIR side, the app implements some of Adobe AIR's newest features including a local database, encrypted local storage, view source capability, automatic updates, and offline capability.

Go Get It!

The source code is available on Google code and the app itself is available for download from SitePen's web site, as they were the creators of the software.

Venture Beat says Adobe is winning the platform race and TechCrunch says that AIR is Flying. There are reasons to believe, however, that AIR is not being used widely and news coverage of the announcement so far has failed to look at those details.

Adobe AIR is a platform that many developers have built applications on top of. Big brands like the New York Times and eBay have made splashy announcements about their AIR apps. Are people using them, though?

In September Adobe put out a frustratingly vague press release announcing, in fact, that AIR apps had been downloaded 25 million times. At least we think that's what the release said, after Adobe PR wrote to tell us that our original report that AIR had been downloaded 25 million times was incorrect. The whole thing seemed like a snow job and in fact Adobe's Rich Internet App evangelist Ryan Stewart deleted his own blog post about that announcement.

Bundled Software

The fact is, the vast majority of AIR downloads probably come from the software riding along in a bundle with the much more popular Adobe PDF Reader and the CS4 design software. Those are programs that millions of people feel like they have to have. There are a lot of AIR apps that are nice to have, but we can't think of many that are a "must have" for the general population.

Desktop Twitter App TweetDeck is a must-have for serious Twitter users, but when Adobe lists TweetDeck and Twhirl as among the most popular apps downloaded by these owners of 100 million AIR installs - then we really suspect this isn't a serious number. All of Twitterdom has maybe 6 million people and only a tiny fraction of them use these AIR power tools.

Adobe does say however that "the majority of AIR runtime installations occur at the time the first AIR application is installed by a user -- usually through the use of an "install badge" using AIR's seamless install feature."

We suspect though that people are downloading AIR because it tags along with other software they actually want and then once they've got it, they aren't using it. Now Adobe is hyping it like the the company won the Superbowl (that's how many people in the US will watch the game, by they way, 100 million) and it just doesn't seem likely to be true. That's our theory.

We await an official response, but we asked these questions publicly on the Adobe blog post about the announcement and so far only supportive comments are being approved to appear there. Update: Our comment is now posted, so we'll see what kind of response we get.

Recently, FriendDeck developer Paul Kinlan released an Adobe AIR application of his FriendFeed tracking tool. Although still rough around the edges, this app has potential to become a viable alternative interface to FriendFeed for the service's heaviest users.

One of the best features of the new AIR application is how it syncs with the online version of FriendDeck. That means whatever changes you make within FriendDeck on the web show up in the desktop application and vice versa.(Side note: how we wish TweetDeck did this!)

But let's be clear. The Adobe AIR version of FriendDeck still needs a lot of work. The slider bars are hard to see, the columns can't be moved around, "un-like" didn't work in the first version we tested, pictures don't show along with posts, and performing searches requires the use of specific query syntax, like "friends:username." That last bit practically requires you to use a cheat sheet when building your columns. (For search query syntax, see the list provided here.)

Yet despite these problems - all of which are being addressed according to the developer - I still can't get enough of FriendDeck. Why? It's simple: FriendDeck gives me an eagle-eye view of the topics I care about on FriendFeed. Using the app, I can see a lot more information with a glance than when I use the FriendFeed web site itself.

Use FriendDeck to Follow Your Lists, Rooms, and Searches 

There are a couple of ways you can use FriendDeck. For me, a compulsion to organize things into groups has led to the creation of over 30 lists for tracking specific topical areas outside of my "home" feed. I don't check each list daily, but it's nice to have them there. I doubt that anyone else has embarked on such madness, but even if you have only a few lists, like "Favorites" or "Personal", you can add them to the FriendDeck application by typing in "list:list_name" (where, obviously, "list_name" is the name of your list).

Similarly, if you're less inclined to use lists and more inclined to track items by keyword, you can instead just type in the word or words you want to track in the search box. For rooms, you would just type "room:room_name."

Use FriendDeck as a More Advanced Feed Reader

Another great way to use FriendDeck has to do with one of the biggest secrets surrounding FriendFeed itself: you don't have to participate to use the service. Although community members will tell you this goes against what FriendFeed is all about, it's true. If you're the kind of person who could care less about "liking" items or leaving comments on the latest internet meme, you can alternately use FriendFeed as an aggregator on topics you want to track, no participation required. Instead, FriendFeed can simply become the framework you use to build the feed reader of the future: an aggregator which lets you follow much more than RSS feeds alone.

For example, take any subject about which you're passionate. You could build a private FriendFeed room that you fill with blogs, news sites, Twitter searches, Google searches, well-known Twitter users who post on this subject, and more. Within one interface, you can track it all. This is a million times better than just following blogs in an RSS reader or just tracking Twitter posts using Twitter's search engine because you're not limited to RSS alone.

You can share these rooms with others either by making them public or by inviting select users - like your colleagues - to join. Alternately, you can keep them completely private and only for your personal use.

You can then add these personalized rooms into FriendDeck by typing in "room:room_name" and soon you'll have one single application that tracks everything you care about on the internet - from blogs posts to tweets and so much more. And it's all in one window.

Too Complicated?

In explaining how FriendDeck works, it occurs to us that it may sound a bit complicated for the average user. That may be true, but then again, FriendFeed itself is an application that requires a lot of explanation, too. It's also quite possible that FriendFeed and FriendDeck will never cross over into "regular user" territory. That's OK, though. For anyone who has learned how to use FriendFeed - really use FriendFeed - applications like FriendDeck will hold appeal, despite their complications.

It's still far too early to call FriendDeck a complete success or failure, but it's not too early to use it. If you're geeky enough to learn its quirks, you may find the FriendFeed desktop application you've been waiting for. If not, then feel free to return to your browser.

Demo Apps

We tested some of the demo applications that Appcelerator has created, and both the Twitter app and the 'Playtanium' desktop YouTube player worked just as advertised and felt as speedy as you would expect from a native application. Being demos, the apps were obviously not very feature rich, but clearly show the potential of the platform.

Money

Appcelerator also announced a $4.1 million Series A funding round, which should put the development of this platform on safe footing for the foreseeable future.

Bridging the Gap Between Web and Desktop

According to Jeff Haynie, Appcelerator's CEO, Titanium is meant to provide an open source alternative to other, proprietary platforms with similar feature sets. It is good to see more innovation in this space, which until now was more or less dominated by proprietary platforms.

The question, of course, will be if developers will adopt the platform for their own projects (looking at the documentation, it would seem that any Ruby programmer should be able to get a Titanium project up and running in no time). Appcelerator is definitely doing its part to help developers by providing them with ample documentation for the Titanium SDK.

Overview of two Titanium Demo Apps from jeff haynie on Vimeo.

The best way to understand TextFlow's feature set and interface is to try out one of the Flash demos on the company's website.

Elegant, but With Severe Limitations

Sadly, TextFlow's usefulness is restricted by a number of severe limitations. It can, for example, only handle files of less than 10 pages. TextFlow also can't handle images or charts and tables, which, depending on the type of documents you need to edit, might be a show-stopper. Up to seven editors can submit documents, which should be enough in most circumstances, but might be too restrictive for some.

According to TextFlow, a lot of its alpha users were in big corporations and law firms, and it is easy to see why these users would like TextFlow. We can also see how this would be a useful tool for students who want to work on a group project. TextFlow's current limitations, however, will leave a lot of users wanting for more.

In the future, TextFlow might switch from being an Adobe AIR application to a pure online model that will have fewer restriction, but if you often need to collaboratively edit relatively short and simple text documents, TextFlow is definitely a product that is worth a try.

Moderator is a simple app that does its job well. The app provides you with notifications of how many comments are waiting on your approval both inside the app and also when the app is docked in your taskbar. Moderator also gives you the option of deleting, approving, or marking a comment as spam. You can also choose to view the gravatar of a commenter and set the refresh interval at up to 60 minutes. All of this is nicely packaged in a small and clean user interface.

Moderating Comments From Your Desktop

Developed by Daniel Dura, Moderator is a nifty AIR app and WordPress plugin that allows WordPress users to moderate comments from their desktop with ease. To get started, all you will need is version 2.6+ of WordPress and the latest version of Adobe AIR. To download Moderator, the app requires you to first install the Moderator plugin into your WordPress plugins directory. Doing so provides an added layer of security for your blog. Once the plugin is installed and activated you will be presented with a download link for the Moderator AIR app. As an early release, users may encounter some kinks and quirks depending on the amount of unmoderated comments you receive on a daily basis. However, Moderator is a great app to help you keep up with your comments as the day wears on, without having to constantly refresh your WordPress dashboard.