DigitalBeat

Adobe announced a product today called Adobe Wave that lets publishers notify their users of updates directly on their desktop, in the latest effort by a large company to get in on the real-time notification craze.

Readers opt-in for the updates. For example, if you’re a reader of VentureBeat, and want VentureBeat article links to appear on your desktop as soon as they’re published, Adobe Wave lets you select that option. VentureBeat can then tailor how we send you those updates.

The notifications arrive on your desktop in the shape of a rectangular widget (see above for example of widgets featuring Evite and MySpace updates). Then they form a river, as new notifications come in (see below) You can click on them and they direct you to the publisher’s specified URL. All of this happens out of the browser. Publishers can customize with things like logo, background and foreground colors, and a thumbnail image.

Adobe announced the feature today at a Crunchup event in Redwood City, Calif. However, the product won’t go live until next week. VentureBeat is one of the first 10 publishing partners to be incorporated into this Wave offering. In fact, we’ve helped Adobe build a plugin to make it easier for other Wordpress publishers to use the feature (we’ll update when it becomes generally available). As for users, those who want to try out the Wave feature should contact Adobe here, and the company will let you know when Wave is available.

The feature is different from the online widgets you can get on your browser, though sites such as Netvibes. You can pull publisher content to these browser-based widgets, but until now you haven’t easily been able to pull information from your favorite sites in ways that you specify. Wave lets you get specific information from say, your MySpace account, including status updates from your friends — directly to your desktop.

The feature is based on Adobe’s AIR technology.

Adobe will feature a Gallery at its site to let users opt-in to receive notifications from selected sites, but publishers will also be able to feature a “subscription badge” on their site.

A REST API lets publishers determine how to communicate with users of the feature. Users are prompted to install Adobe Wave or Adobe AIR, if they haven’t already.

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