Almost everyone in the tech industry is familiar with the concept of an "Elevator Speech". You meet someone for the first time, they ask you what you do, and your job is to very quickly explain it. Who knows, it may be a potential client you're talking to, so you have to make sure what you say is precise, exciting, and positions you as an expert in their eyes.

Have you ever tried to explain to someone that you are involved in the development of a Rich Internet Application? Did they ask you what on earth that is, and did you proceed to try explain it? It can be very difficult.

In our many industry echo chambers, we all seem to know what the term means, but is there really any hard definition that we use as grounds for our claims? Is the concept specific, or is it a vague blanket term used to make web applications sound more exciting? Are we all talking about the same thing even?

I am in search of the perfect elevator speech for Rich Internet Applications, and want to get to the very bottom of what they really are, and really aren't. I think it is very important, otherwise we are just talking about software development and experience design in general, and not working towards any type of real vision.

If you take the components of the name "Rich", "Internet", and "Application", you could easily make some assumptions. Since "Rich", and "Internet" are adjectives applied to "Application", you could easily assume that this is a new breed of Application.

An application being:

From Wikipedia:
"a subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform"

The adjective "Internet" could mean a few things. It could mean that the application itself resides on the internet, or it could be that the application consumes or creates data that is stored on the internet. This can be a bit confusing, because it's hard to determine if "Internet" really means "World Wide Web" or really "Internet".

Does the adjective "Internet" exclude applications that run on the desktop? If so, then why would Adobe AIR, JavaFX, Prism, Google Gears or Windows Presentation Foundation, be considered Rich Internet Application technologies?

Finally we come to "Rich", meaning rich interface or rich user experience. This adjective is referring to the fact that the user experience designed for this application is somehow enhanced or better. This is a hard one to deal with though, because it is a very relative term, relative to your experience as a user of software. There are many great applications that have beautifully designed interfaces that have existed for years.

This is going to be a lot more difficult than I thought. A Rich Internet Application could be something like Buzzword (an online word processor), it could also be something like iTunes (a desktop music player), it could be the SlingPlayer for my Slingbox, or maybe Facebook even. Is Gmail an RIA? Or better yet is Outlook? An argument could be made that almost any modern day application has the ability to be classified as "Rich", and "Internet". So what is everyone really referring to when talking about RIAs?

Rich Internet Applications are really more of a movement than they are something concrete, very similar to the concept of Web 2.0.

I feel that the most important characteristic of this movement in software, is that it is trying to un-tether you from your computer and your computer's operating system and eliminate platform dependency.

For years, we have had to install huge software packages, we have had to cart files around on disks, trying to manage team efforts, and remote participation. As a result we have developed dependency on software tethered to proprietary operating systems and hardware.

The Rich Internet Application movement takes us a level above all of that, putting our data, processes, and interactions with each other in the cloud.

The second characteristic of the Rich Internet Application movement, is the challenge of offering powerful user-interfaces that allow people to accomplish tasks effectively. In the past, having applications residing in the cloud came with some sense of experiential compromise. The Rich Internet Application movement denies that feeling and works to meet and hopefully surpass the expectations that people already have of desktop software.

So I am going to take a first stab at describing Rich Internet Applications in an elevator:

"Hi, my name is Tony MacDonell. I am a Rich Internet Application developer.

Rich Internet Applications are software programs that are designed to run above the level of the operating system, and are universally available to you, where ever you may be when you need to use them. You can run them on any computer, in any context. Run them in the web browser, on the desktop, or even on mobile devices as well. Rich Internet Applications offer powerful user interfaces, that allow you to work or play in ways that are familiar, intuitive, and exciting. They leverage the best of the web, without sacrificing the power of the desktop."

This is pretty simple, but I think it encompasses the true values that make Rich Internet Applications unique. I think it's phrased in a way that almost anyone can understand.