Today starts what will be a weekly column here at InsideRIA.com. I will be examining all of the blog posts that I read over the week - and bringing out the highlights in all of the different RIA communities. Obviously, I won't be able to highlight everything - so, we will also be creating a way for you (the community) to get involved and send me information on news items in the RIA field.

For this week, the big news was the big SEO announcement from Adobe about how Google and Yahoo are indexing text inside of SWF files. However, this was not the only news of the week. This week I will examine items from Flash, Flex, Silverlight, JavaFX, Ajax, Curl, and OpenLaszlo. Let's get started!

Feature: The Adobe SEO Announcement (Technologies: Flex, Flash, Silverlight)

Adobe announced on July 1 that it was teaming up with Google and Yahoo to index content inside of SWF files (which applies to both Flash and Flex). This has long been a concern for Flash / Flex content. In addition to the announcement, response came pouring in from both the Adobe community as well as from the Sliverlight community. There were two responses I read that bring out valid points:

Peter Elst's Response (Adobe Community Expert)
Thoughts on Fully Searchable Flash

Scott Barnes's Response (Microsoft)
SEO: Nothing Changed

In addition, the announcements left some question marks as to how this integration would work. I found some of the best information directly from Adobe and Google:

Google's Information on Flash Searchability
Adobe FAQ on Flash Searchability

So what does this mean? First, this announcement is not the solution to all of the Flash / Flex SEO issues. In reality, it is the beginning which will allow for a future solution. Until a uniform solution can be put in place for deep linking inside of SWF content and then connected with the search results from Google and Yahoo - the problem won't be solved. However, Adobe is certainly on the right path.

Intro and Update for Curl (Technologies: Curl)

Curl is a primarily enterprise RIA platform. If you haven't been introduced to Curl, or if you haven't kept up with the recent news - you might want to listen to this week's RIA Weekly. Michael and Ryan interview Richard Monson-Haefel of Curl, Inc.

If you are not in an enterprise environment, Curl might not be a technology that you will need to follow, but if you are in an enterprise environment that will need to develop browser / desktop applications that require some serious number crunching - Curl might be a technology you need to watch.

The Evolution of Flex (Technologies: Flex)

Flex is at a bit of a crossroads. Flex 4 has been discussed at conferences, but now Ely Greenfield (Flex Architect) has posted a video on Adobe TV that explains how the new designer and developer workflow in Flex 4 will be reflected in the Flex 4 SDK. This is also a part of the upcoming designer RIA tool, Thermo.

Ely Greenfield's Talk on Flex 4 (Adobe TV)

JavaFX SDK Update (Technologies: JavaFX)

Jim Weaver posted some additional details about how the JavaFX SDK is coming together - leading up to the Technology Preview Release.

The JavaFX SDK Packages are Taking Shape

I think the question most developers are asking is - 'Did JavaFX miss the boat?' This is a valid question - and I think the answer is 'not yet'. However, if the upcoming release doesn't give its developers some competitive advantage, I don't believe it will make a large dent into the bigger RIA world.

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Examples (Technologies: Silverlight)

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 was released in early June, so developers have had a bit of time to develop some great applications with the new features and improvements. This week Microsoft announced that there have been 14 new entries added to the Silverlight gallery using the new version.

Silverlight Community Gallery

Web 3.0 (Technologies: All)

As I was reading Ethan Eisman's (Experience Designer at Adobe) blog this week - I ran across a video he referenced from the Next Web Conference 2008 by Nova Spivack. Ethan refers to this video as 'This may be the most important video concerning Web 3.0 available right now'.

Check out Ethan's post and view the video here.

Flash Player 10 - Beta 2 (Technologies: Flash, Flex)
Justin Everett-Church announced the release of Flash Player 10 Beta 2 and outlined some of the new features.

Flash Player 10 Beta 2
Lee Brimelow on Flash Player 10 Beta 2

OpenLaszlo 4.1 - Ajax (Technologies: OpenLaszlo, Flash, Flex, Ajax)

Dion Almaer wrote a post giving some of the details about OpenLaszlo including the expanded AJAX/DHTML support with the new version on Ajaxian. OpenLaszlo has had a committed community since its inception, but it will be interesting to see if this version can make connections with the Ajax community on a large scale.

Conclusion

Stay tuned next week for another Weekly RIA Roundup, and listen for ways that you can get involved.