Adobe's Digital Media Museum

One of the more public feuds between companies has been Apple's dismissal of Adobe's Flash software. Flash powers a lot of animated web content, but can use a lot of a computer's resources to display it. Ever had a slow web page, or a page that never fully loads, or crashed a browser? Blame Flash. And bulky software is incompatible with the increasing demands for mobile computing.

Apple has been working on its own Flash-style software, which would have a good chance of becoming the web standard. In an attempt to tarnish Flash's reputation, and likewise drive its demand, Apple has barred Flash from the iPad and for a time had also barred apps using Flash for the iPhone.

Perhaps it's cynical of us to suspect that Adobe's new digital museum/website is really just a subtle (or not-so-subtle) marketing tool to promote Flash. We say this because when we checked into the website's launch yesterday, it took an unacceptably long time to launch. Today it's not loading at all. Blame Flash.

What we did see yesterday was very brief, taking a shorter time to play than it took to load. It was animated art that was impressive, but hardly enough to hang a "museum" on. The rest of the site is limited, and heavy on the futuristic/cyber/geek vibe.

Still, it has potential, and might be worth checking into again in a few weeks. If we remember to.