You probably won’t have seen this article mentioned on fullasagoog or mxna, but I think it has a big impact on Macromedia.

On Thusrday Microsoft unveiled its new internet growth strategy. While the article talks about Google, eBay and Apple, if you read between the lines, it?s talking about Rich Internet Applications.

“New areas of interest were likely to involve communications, web-based storage, and tools to help workers collaborate better.” Steve Ballmer said, “The internet’s transformative impact on the software business has just begun.” And as one analyst at Goldman Sachs said, Microsoft is using its large base of software products to spin off new ides for business based on delivering services over the internet.

I realize that Google, eBay and Apple’s iTunes software aren’t popular because they’re rich internet applications. But they are popular because they’re easy to use and go about their task very efficiently (whether that’s indexing the web, bringing together sellers and buyers, or distributing music). That’s really where rich internet applications are going to go next, making services more accessible and as user friendly as possible. If Microsoft is going to bring the power of Windows and Office to the internet, it’s going to be done with RIAs.

Microsoft is a software company, and they do that job pretty well. Within that software model is a lot of untapped potential in the form of services and content delivery. The best way to provide those will be with broadband internet and RIAs. By creating applications that look and feel like windows apps, but are delivered and connected through the internet, user adoption will be almost a non-issue. Well written RIAs can be the ultimate user experience to deliver these services.

It may not be clear but I think this announcement is a major volley in the battle over the RIA market. We shall see.

I saw this on Scoble’s blog had to share it.

It’s an ad for Carlton Draught that according to this article isn’t supposed to be launched until August 7th but has become a viral marketing campaign.

It’s short but clever. The link is http://www.bigad.com.au/ but I had to open it in internet explorer to get it to work.

Last post of the night, but something had to be said: October 5th will be a glorious day. Champagne will fall from the heavens, birds will sing, lovers will be falling in love all over and the National Hockey League will be playing 15 games of a new and improved hockey.

I have mapped out my evening as follows:
7:00 – Start with the NY Rangers at Philadelphia game. I’ll be switching back and forth between that and Montreal and Boston.
7:30 – Switch over to Pittsburgh at New Jersey to watch the future of the league play his first NHL game. Will he score a goal on his first shot ala another Penguin?
8:30 – Start switching between the Croz and the Calgary v. Minnesota game.
9:30 – watch The Avalanche play the first game of its Stanley Cup winning season.
12:30 – After the Avs game, switch over to watch Vancouver lose 12-2 to Phoenix.

It will be a phenomenal day.

Forbes released their Best of the Web for summer 2005 and Wharton made the list a couple of times. Knowledge@Wharton took top prize (Forbes’ Favorite) for Best B-School E-Zine (review here).

Jeremy Siegel also made the list for B-School Gurus

It’s awesome to be working for a place that continually sets the bar higher and higher when it comes to the cutting edge. And while I was sad to see that the new learning lab page didn’t make it, I’m sure they won’t make the same mistake twice . In all seriousness, I wonder what we could have done to put OTIS on the list for Best Trading Games. It looks like most of the listed sites are free, so maybe that’s why it didn’t make it.