project individual project three: digital innovationfor innovation practice, professor michael billsby shay-jahen merrittéwhen february sixteenth two-thousand-ten

making creation accessable to artists of all genres

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what is aviary Aviary is a suite of proprietary web-based multi-media applications built using the adobe flex platform. Aviary was created by the creators of worth1000 a website that held weekly photoshop contests. The creators of worth1000 realized that many creatives could not participate in their contests because they could not afford the very expensive costs of purchasing any of the Adobe products, so they created Aviary to produce and distribute stripped down versions of creative software that could replicate the functionality of Adobe and other commercial creative software. To date Aviary has announced 17 applications, with 7 released to date. Aviary also creates tutorials and wiki sites for all their applications.

phoenix image editorpeacock node based visual laboratorytoucan color swatches and palettes creatorraven vector editortalon firefox screen capture add-onfalcon image markupmyna audio editor

Roc beat generator

Eagle pixel pattern recognitionOwl desktop publishing layout editorPenguin word processorPigeon painting simulatorWoodpecker smart image resizerHummingbird 3D modelerIbis font creatorStarling video editorTern terrain generator

released applications

alpha test applications

announced applications

17 appstotal

7

1

9

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screenshots of the different application interfaces

toucan color swatch interface

phoenix image editor interface

peacock node based visual laboratory interface

raven vector creator interface

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Worth1000 &Aviary Users

12 Aviary Programers

Avi Muchnick | CEO DigimixMichael Galpert | VPIsrael Derdik | CTO

creation process Aviary launched it’s first product, phoenix, its image editor interface, in 2007. Phoenix was created with input from 500,000 users of worth1000, the founders of Aviary’s online creative competition website. From there, further applications were created with Adobe’s Flex and Air platform with input from its users. Aviary also made its first acquisition, Digimix in 2009, a web music application that it made into its myna audio editor.

prosumer input

acquisitions

products

free use

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sustainable points of competitive differentiation | consumer benefits

Aviary v. Adobe Products 5

learning curve | aviary products were designed forthe masses to be simple and easy to use by most anyone, consequently they have less of a learningcurve than adobe products.

accessibility | adobe products can only be installed on a single computer and its files can only be opened by computers that have the adobe products installed on them. Aviary products, are browser based, so they can be accessed by any computer with an internet connection.

cost | aviary products cost nothing, while adobeproducts cost several thousands of dollars. Even though the Aviary products may have less functionality than the adobe products, it is hard to convince the average consumer that they have $2,499 worth of extra functionality.

$2,499$0

monetization | aviary was designed to benefit the creative user, an important element of which is the selling of user works. Besides developing sales agreements with online manufacturers like Zazzle which allows Aviary products to be printed on everything from posters and mugs to Keds and skateboards, Aviary employs sophisticated intellectual property tracking systems so that if a file one user creates is used by another user, the first user will receive a cut of the funds from products sold by the second user. Adobe products provide no integrated monetization solutions for its users.

NAcommunity | aviary originated from a community online photoshop contest, so its creators wanted to make the community aspect a very important aspect of aviary products. Users of aviary can look at other user’s work and make comments. Even more though, aviary saves each iteration of work created on the site so users can see the process of others or even open up others work edit it themselves. While there are many communites devoted to Adobe products, the community concept or is not integrated into the products to make it easy for users to share.

NA

success criteria

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Series B Funding2009 from Spark Capital & Bezos Expeditions

Daily Member Visits

Unique Daily Visits

After 1.5 years of beta testing and 1.5 years of public service.

sources

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paulstamatiou.compapercrafted.comcrunchbase.comappappeal.comtechcruch.cominsideria.comaviary.comcnet.com