Favorite Sites 13 Mar 2005 05:06 pm
IBM ForwardView portal
Wow - I’m finding all sorts of cool Flash content throughout IBM’s site. Here’s another interesting site that is laid out as a monthly newsletter. It utilizes Flash and Flash video in a very effective way.
Note that you must sign up for their free email newsletter in order to view most of the content.
http://forwardview.showmail.tv
on 14 Mar 2005 at 3:31 am 1.Joe said …
What a rip of http://www.rr.com/flash SHAME IBM!
on 14 Mar 2005 at 4:22 am 2.Mark said …
its great the way Macromedia flash can be used to rip others so easily. bad IBM.
on 14 Mar 2005 at 7:11 am 3.paulc said …
Design rip, yes.
But I think this is a great example of how Flash can bring a more TV like experience to the web sans video.
I can think of several organizations that could use a site like that to draw their (corporate) customers in.
Bit of a CPU hog though.
on 14 Mar 2005 at 7:50 am 4.annoying said …
design rip? you guys crack me up with that shit.
Inspired maybe, rip no.
on 14 Mar 2005 at 10:05 am 5.oouch said …
yes good example. But too similar to the Road Runner site.
on 14 Mar 2005 at 10:32 am 6.rich said …
Rip? They don’t even look the same. There’s only so many ways to present a similar style of content in such a successful manner, RR showed how it could be done, indeed it was a milestone in Flash RIA that just works. Big Blue is just too smart to get it wrong (most of the time!)
Flash makes it easy to rip designs? I think not, even if you decompile a SWF you still have to create practically everything from scratch, code and assets. Perhaps it was the white panels and soft shadows that reminded you of the thousands of other sites that employ that little aesthetic beauty
CPU hog it is, though, which is a bit of a shame I guess.
on 15 Mar 2005 at 11:09 am 7.Gordon P said …
Mike, not a good idea to post a site that has very similar look to the best flash app ever made, http://www.rr.com/flash The pods are lifted, tweaked a little and put into IBM. I wonder is Road Runner aware of this.
on 18 May 2005 at 2:45 pm 8.Nik said …
Similar styles are not rips…give it a rest. Rips are literally the same design with new content.
on 02 Dec 2005 at 8:26 am 9.Clete said …
I wish I had seen this post back in March when it was still topical. Other than the use of beveled edges, FV Showmail and RR look nothing alike! The true test is the content. RR posts short videos in flash. FV uses mostly composited images and vector art with some video thrown in.
Showmail is history anyway. For the newly redesigned FV site, go to:
http://www-1.ibm.com/businesscenter/cpe/html0/33409.html
Now there’s QUITE a difference between the 2.
on 31 Jan 2006 at 10:38 am 10.Daniel said …
SHOWMAIL WAS CREATED BY A VENDOR FOR IBM - IBM DID NOT RIP THIS OFF. IBM DID NOT CREATE THIS. BLAME THE VENDOR!! I WON”T NAME NAMES HOWEVER, ALL U PEOPLE IN SERVICES KNOW VENDORS OFTEN RESELL THEIR SOLUTIONS AND REPACKAGE THEM.
ALSO LARGE CORPS USE MARKEING AND AD AGENCIES OFTEN TO CREATE CONTENT
TA TA