Digital content is exploding; video on the Web is booming; Web 2.0 is hurtling toward us; and Adobe believes "engagement" is the one word that best captures its strategy and encapsulates the competitive advantage that its fast-expanding product set gives to the developers and designers who use it.

But there's always an inherent danger for any company getting behind a meta-theme like "revolutionizing how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium," that it defines a wish rather than a reality. So the thousands of developers assembled in the keynote hall of the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas last month at MAX 2006 were undoubtedly united in a desire to decide for themselves which applies in Adobe's case.

Adobe SVP and chief software architect Kevin Lynch, who emceed the conference and gave it his unmistakeable trademark (as in, complete and utter mastery of his subject), reminded the keynote audience how the Flash Player is now on over 700 million Internet-connected desktops and mobile devices worldwide, and how in less than a year a new version of the Player can now be rolled out - faster than any Web browser or operating system.

Lynch then showcased some of the early apps that have already been created using Apollo, showing Flex applications running inside Apollo, and a combination of PDF and Flash all running harmoniously. eBay has created a neat little app for managing eBay transactions and sports-car-loving Lynch even put in a live bid for a Jaguar - a miniature model. An experimental MySpace app was next, and then a word processor app from Virtual Ubiquity called Nimbus. He closed with an Internet TV application being developed in-house at Adobe, called "philo" - if anyone had any doubt that Flash video is at the center of the Adobe vision for 2007-8 and beyond, Lynch's slick demo will have showed them that it will be.

He then announced the $100M venture capital fund that Adobe is creating to invest over the next 3-5 years in companies leveraging Adobe platform technologies, particularly companies delivering applications via Apollo. But the final prop in Lynch's performance was a shiny new Jaguar. Life-sized, this time.

"The largest mobile device in the world running the Flash Player," he called it. And in case anyone thought he was bluffing, he immediately jumped into the Jag and demo'd how Flash technology was running all the on-board information and entertainment systems.

With moves like those announced at MAX, Microsoft needs to look out that Adobe's chief software architect and his colleagues don't drive down the participation superhighway of Web 2.0 and overtake them. The Adobe Vision for 2007-8 and beyond is huge, including a move aimed at giving North American developers the chance to get their content on phones and out in the market. This was the big mobile news of the conference - a partnership with Verizon and three new mobile content aggregators. If you weren't able to be at MAX, check out this page: www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/verizon.html. And/or watch and read the coverage of MAX 2006 on SYS-CON.TV and at WebDDJ.com.

There's a longer report on MAX in this issue, too, written by Adrian Bridgwater whom we welcome to the writer roster of Web Developer's & Designer's Journal. Adrian, a seasoned cross-platform technology journalist, is based in the UK where he edits International Developer. We also have regulars this month like Jeff Tapper and Darron J. Schall; the co-founders of Blue Instant, Laura Arguello and Nahuel Foronda; as well as a helpful how-to piece from Danilo Celic, a partner at Community MX. If you are interested in joining our fast-expanding pool of developer-writers, please don't hesitate to drop an e-mail to editorial (at) sys-con.com.