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Adobe Connect has been having all sorts of updates recently, and more shiny newness are some of their apps! These are files you download, then put the whole .zip file into a share pod to extend the features that are already there.Â
- On some Adobe Connect webinars I've recently used the Agree to Disagree pod, which is great for quick responses.Â
- There's a soundboard now, so you can put in your own applauses (or groans in my case!).
- Another custom pod I love the look of is Titler! In it you can add titles and backgrounds for your layouts or breakout rooms and make them look a bit more funky.
Are there any of the custom pods you love using, and what do you think of the new ones?
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Replies
Hi Jo,
yes, AC has added some great custom pods. I love the Agree to Disagree one, because it's much easier for the participants to answer than using the respective menu item (that's one click more). And you can change the icons or switch to slider only view.
Have you already seen the YouTube pod? Thank God, no more sending participants to the YouTube website (and losing them) or uploading files - just fill in the share link and you're set.Â
And I love the new Quiz pod. There are some built-in quizzes and you can set up your own. Just follow the help link in the pod which takes you to https://www.connectusers.com/content/pods/help/quizconnect-help.html.Â
The Rank-it pod is a nice idea, but it comes with somes issues, f. e. you can't prepare a ranking as it doesn't work in the host-only area. I hope they will work on this soon.
Apart from that I'm really grateful for the free resources that AC ist offering us. My German AC provider offers some custom pods, too, but charges quite high fees for them. Time to learn how to set up those custom HTML5 pod myself ;).
Have a great time exploing!
Cheers,
Susanne
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"Apart from that I'm really grateful for the free resources that AC ist offering us. My German AC provider offers some custom pods, too, but charges quite high fees for them. Time to learn how to set up those custom HTML5 pod myself ;)."
Interested in your comments / observations - what would you feel is a fair price for a custom pod / extension app for Adobe Connect?
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The reality of crerating apps is that large amounts of time are required. Â
These environments (online meeting rooms) are even more challenging to write code for, and even harder to write code that people find useful and that works in the multitude of end user environments which are used to access  the meeting room.  This is compounded by numbers, if you have 100+ attendees the code has to work in a different style to 10 attendees, otherwise the user experience and room performance can be badly affected.
The apps we created for AC (LocationMap, StickyNotePages, SurveyMaker and WebInterview) required thousands of resource hours (programmers are expensive).
Despite being very well received (used more than 10 million times by over 2000 license holders), they never re-paid the five years of resource investment, let alone the ongoing costs of licensing services, version control and end user support. I could have priced them higher (like our competitors) - but, I suspect that still would have produced the same overall revenue (high sales values but from a smaller number of customers).
Many people have asked me to re-do our apps for HTML5 (which is actually JavaScript code) - but, I find when I mention the levels of money required to do so, everyone goes quiet.... so, perhaps fellow LightBulbers might have useful info' / thoughts on this...
How are people finding having apps in Zoom?
What value do you place on having "in room" apps for syncronous environments like Zoom / Connect?
Thanks James. I know we've discussed this a few times before and it's great to share your experience of this to give some insight. It's hard to know what's involved in these things when you are on the user end sometimes!Â
I think that paying for these apps/extensions is going to be less and less tolerated by users, partly because so many are available for free, and partly because with good instructional design you can probably come up with an alternative activity to achieve what you want. Plus platforms now are developing their systems much more rapidly than pre-covid, which not only gives them an edge and better service for the customer, but I assume more challenges to the developers too.Â
I think the paid-for apps/extensions are for something really quite specific or to link to specific external software that corporations will pay for, but smaller teams/individual trainers won't.Â
Just my thoughts, interested in those of others!