SALT LAKE CITY — Adobe is revolutionizing how the world engages with ideas and information, its leader says. Omniture is tracking who's being reached and how it helps them. And the marriage last year of the two — Adobe bought Utah-based Omniture — puts together the art and science of pairing the right product to the correct customer.
Now they're teaming with Facebook and Research in Motion's BlackBerry product line to further blur lines between content and application and where marketing will rule in real time.
That vision by Adobe chief Shantanu Narayen and Omniture co-founder Josh James was center stage Wednesday during the three-day Omniture Summit. The conference attracts a couple thousand attendees, including analysts and marketing technology providers, for breakout sessions, brainstorming and entertainment that this year means The Killers in concert.
Adobe is "revolutionizing how the world engages with ideas and information," Narayen said. And Facebook, with its 40 million registered and frequent users, and the popularity of BlackBerry's smart phone technology make great opportunities for the creative and lucrative flow of ideas and information.
The incentives for strong partnerships and product integration are powerful. Allen Brenner, an RIM senior vice president, noted that one-sixth of all cell phones shipped last quarter were smart phones — some 50 million, expected to grow to 400 million by 2014. "That's a "massive opportunity," he said. Plus, BlackBerry has 36 million subscribers, of whom 61 percent are individual consumers, rather than businesses.
He noted Morgan Stanley's prediction that within three years, mobile Web users will be four times the size of the desktop Web's.
James called Facebook "one of the most transformational tech companies," astounding in part because its users are so willing to share personal information with Facebook. And half visit the site daily. And it's not just kids.
Working together, the companies can "optimize the social media for marketers," James said. Picture a wedding photographer going after business and using Facebook to find women in his community who are engaged. That is one example they used. Then Omniture's technology can measure the results.
Dan Rose, Facebook vice president, said teenagers point to the future. Most don't use e-mail, but text all day.
"We're moving toward more real-time communication," he said, nothing with a laugh that two teens caught in a manhole updated their Facebook status and were rescued. A diamond thief who updated his status from the scene experienced the opposite result.
James said part of the fees collected for the summit will be used to honor a friend and colleague, W. Brent Pribil, who died of cancer two weeks ago. Pribil usually planned the summit.
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