From the Cluetrain Manifesto, we had thesis #3 stating that “Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.” So what do we get from the recent Adobe/Macromedia merger?
“Adobe’s mission remains the same “to help people and businesses communicate better. With the acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe strengthens its mission through the combination of leading-edge development, authoring and collaboration tools ?” and the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash.”
Since this doesn’t really make any sense, Daring Fireball puts a human translation of the press release on the web:
Where by “complementary” we mean “the two leading technologies that irritate people when they’re used in lieu of regular web pages.” Note that we’re using PDF to serve this very FAQ – in our synergistic future, perhaps we’ll serve our FAQs in a hybrid PDF/Flash format. One can dream.
Which brings us to Cluetrain thesis #20, “Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.”
re: Gruber’s translationI’m glad you enjoyed John’s piece too. I saw it passed around in multiple email conversations inside Macromedia Thursday and Friday, as people heard about it from friends.
You might also enjoy some of the other creative ribbings I’ve collected…?
http://www.markme.com/jd/archives/007537.cfm
Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support