Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 03:08:04 -0400
From: David Mendels <dmendels@macromedia.com>
Subject: SHOCKER: Shockwave Remote, Changes/News

Hello all,

We have all had two very intense weeks since we released Shockwave 7.0.2
Player. We have heard your concerns about the Shockwave Player and will be
making a series of changes as a result.

This is a rather long email, so let me start off with the brief summary and
table of contents to help navigate:

Contents
~~~~~~~~
1. Summary
2. "Phase One" Plans
3. "Phase Two" Plans
4. Shockwave Player Download Size
5. Free Shockwave Player Licensing/Distribution for Intranet and CD-ROM
6. Branding Issues (i.e. "Shockwave  Player is not just for entertainment")
7. Facts about Shockwave 7.02
8. Developer Relations
9. Conclusion

1. Summary
~~~~~~~~~~

We have received a great deal of feedback regarding Shockwave 7.0.2 Player
and the Shockwave Remote.

We are moving quickly to address the issues brought up by the developer
community, in  a two-phased update of the Shockwave Player.

A. Phase One-Update to the Shockwave 7.02 plans to address the urgent
concerns we have heard, and will ship in early September.

B. Phase Two-Update, which will ship later in the Fall, will incorporate a
broader range of changes, based on feedback from the Director developer
community.

We will continue to seek feedback for enhancements in the Shockwave Player
beyond those two releases, so if a specific concern of yours is not
addressed, that does not mean we have ruled it out or that we are not
willing to consider additional changes.

We are also sharing some data on our download statistics, end-user reaction
to the Shockwave Remote and the usage of the Remote.  Together with this, we
provide some information on how you as developers and publishers can work
with us to benefit from the Remote and the new shockwave.com business.


2.  "Phase One" Plans
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These changes will be available both in the new version of the Shockwave
Player, and as an auto-update to the customers who have already downloaded
Shockwave. We are planning for this update to be available in early
September.

A. BY DEFAULT, REMOTE WILL NOT APPEAR ON ANY CONTENT.

By default, the Remote will not come up on any content. If the Remote is
already up, it will stay up when the user goes to new Shockwave content, but
nothing except the Restart button will be capable of controlling that new
content. At any point, the user can completely shut down the Remote.

B. NEW PARAMETERS WILL BE PROVIDED TO ALLOW USERS TO ENABLE/DISABLE
SHOCKWAVE REMOTE CONTROL BUTTONS.

By default, only the Restart, Volume, and Send buttons will be enabled by
default, and are controllable by the developer through HTML. PausePlay,
FastForward, SaveEnabled
will be disabled by default, and are controllable by the developer through
HTML.


C.  THE SHOCKWAVE CONTEXT (CTRL-CLICK, RIGHT-MOUSE) MENU WILL BE TURNED OFF
FOR LOCAL FILE-BASED CONTENT AND A NEW HTML PARAMETER WILL BE ADDED TO
CONTROL THE RIGHT MENU APPEARANCE FOR ALL CONTENT.

The Shockwave Remote context menu will only turn on for URLs beginning with
"http". The Shockwave menu will never come up for file based content, unless
the developer explicitly requests it. We will provide an additional new HTML
tag for turning the context menu off. When turned off, control-clicks on
Macintosh and right-clicks on Windows will be passed through to Lingo and
you can handle them or ignore them as you choose in your DCR. When turned
on, the context menu will occur and you won't get the related Lingo events
and property changes.


D.  ON MACINTOSH, THE REMOTE WILL NOT RUN WHEN NOT IN USE AND WILL BE
QUITTABLE; MEMORY PARTITION WILL BE REDUCED BY APPROXIMATELY 900K; NO MORE
CONTROL STRIP MODULE; REMOTE WILL NOT LAUNCH ON MACHINE STARTUP.

We will change the application model to a more traditional Macintosh model.
If Shockwave content is encountered, the Remote will only be launched on
content that the developer has explicitly enabled. No system resources will
be required when the Remote is not visible. In addition to the close box on
the Remote itself, we will also add an explicit application entry in the
Finder with a menu bar, providing the user with both visibility into what is
running, and the standard menu commands and command equivalents for
quitting. We also are removing the Control Strip Module for Shockwave Remote
to again reduce the runtime footprint of the Remote.

We believe that the reduced memory footprint, the fact that the Remote is no
longer running continuously, the removal of the control strip module, etc.
should increase the stability of Macintosh Shockwave. We appreciate any
specific bug reports that point to additional Macintosh stability issues
(see below for bug reporting information).

See http://www.shockwave.com/devroom for technical details about the Phase
One implementation in the 'August News Section'.


3. "Phase Two" Plans
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A second update, Phase Two, will ship later in the Fall; the exact schedule
yet to be determined. While we are addressing the most urgent issues in our
Phase One release, there are additional issues that we will address in a
subsequent release.

- -We are investigating streamlining the installation process, so that
end-users who have visited the Shockwave Download Center to get Shockwave
can more easily return to your original site. Note: This is an issue for
Netscape users
and for Mac users, only.

- -We will also provide uninstallers for Shockwave.

If you would like to report problems or suggestions for Shockwave 7.02
'Phase Two', please use the database submission form, located at
http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/director/sw7feedback.


See http://www.shockwave.com/devroom for technical details about the Phase
Two implementation in the 'August News Section'.

4. Shockwave Player Download Size
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The increase in size of Shockwave 7.0.2 Player has also been raised as an
issue. This is a concern for us as well.  Establishing ubiquity for the
Shockwave Player, through downloads and also through our various
distribution agreements (Windows 98, MacOS, etc) is a top priority for us.
Since the release of Shockwave 7, we have been carefully tracking the actual
download and installation data our servers receive; the new results for
Shockwave 7.0.2 are extremely positive.

Comparing download data pre and post Shockwave 7.0.2 Player, on like days
(i.e. comparing Saturday to Saturday, Tuesday to Tuesday, etc) we are seeing
solid improvement in the total number of attempted downloads. More
importantly, we are also seeing a greater than 10% increase in the
percentage of those attempted downloads that result in a complete and
successful install of Shockwave Player on both Macintosh and Windows. The
new version has better download success rates than Shockwave 7.

That said, the team will continue to investigate ways to decrease the file
size, and we expect to have some improvements in this regard in our "Phase
2" maintenance release.


5. Free Shockwave Licensing/Distribution for Intranet and CD-ROM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We will be making available, free, licensable, standalone installers for
Intranet and CD-ROM distribution. We had announced that these new installers
would be available in September, however, due to the Phase One changes, the
installers will be rescheduled accordingly. The team is working hard to stay
as close as possible to the original date, and we will update you when we do
have a new date.

If you have an urgent project that is at risk because of this schedule,
please email players_info@macromedia.com and give us as much detail as
possible about the situation so that we can explore every avenue to assist.


6. Branding Issues (i.e. "Shockwave is not just for entertainment")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We agree that Shockwave is not just for entertainment. We will continue to
market Shockwave for business and education uses, as well as entertainment
purposes.

We want to help you sell Shockwave content to your clients.  On Wednesday,
August 18th, we will launch a new Shockwave Case Study microsite, designed
to help educate your clients about using Shockwave to gain business results.
Please visit the site at http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/success.

We will be promoting this site with advertising and links in the Shockwave
Download Centers.

If you have delivered Shockwave 7 projects that would be a good candidate
for a case study for other potential Shockwave clients to review, please
contact Jana Ziegler, at jana@macromedia.com.


7. Facts about Shockwave 7.02
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We heard from a number of developers that they would like to know more about
how consumers are reacting to the Remote's features. We have been collecting
usage data for the Shockwave Remote.

A.  During the first 11 days of the Shockwave Remote being available, end
users "sent" 71,497 Shockwave site URLs to one or more other end users on
the web. 78% of the 71,497 'sends', while came from third party web sites
and 22% came from www.shockwave.com or www.macromedia.com.

B. During the same period, the Remote's Shockwave Search feature led to
106,727 visits to Shockwave Search, leading thousands of consumers to third
party web sites.  In order to submit your content to Shockwave Search, see
www.shockwave.com/devroom for details, under "Free Site Services."


8. Developer Relations
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are increasing our staff to three full-time people working on Developer
Relations for Director and Shockwave.

In addition, we will be forming an advisory group of developers specifically
charged with helping us specify and develop Shockwave Player in the future.

A. Many of you have met Pete Caban or read his posts online.  Pete is
leading Developer Relations for the shockwave.com group.  He will be
participating in many of the lists and speaking with many developers about
how we can work together, help each other, and keep improving the
shockwave.com site, Shockwave Search, the Remote's functionality, and
Shockmachine. Pete can be reached at 415-252-4152, or pete@shockwave.com.

B. We are also adding to this effort by having Jake Sapirstein (who you many
also know from his posts) interface with the Director development community,
from a software Quality Assurance standpoint. Jake is focusing on building
systems to improve the bug tracking and reporting coming from lists like
Direct-l and Shocker-l.

C. Additionally, we are actively recruiting for a Developer Relations
Manager to work as part of the Director Product team. If you know of anyone
who
might be interested, information is in the jobs section of www.macromedia.com 
under product management.


9. Conclusion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Phew.  Long email. If you really read this far, thanks. -;)
I thought it would be better to give too much information than to leave
things out. 
In addition to our regular day-to-day participation in the lists and our
discussions with
developers, we will send more formal updates like this email once every
few weeks while we are refining these plans. Thanks again for your feedback
over the last few weeks. It is helping us make Shockwave a better product
for all.

Regards,


David Mendels
Senior Vice President and General Manager
Web Publishing, Macromedia

=======================================================
David Mendels
Senior Vice President and General Manager
Web Publishing, Macromedia
=======================================================