I’ve been reading trickles of information regarding Adobe’s new lightweight application, Adobe AIR, that holds some serious promise for anyone interested in interactive storytelling.  I first heard rumors about it being installed and integrated in all multimedia devices starting next year.

In reading up on its various capabilities (of which there are many interesting ones) I came across the promotion for AVATAR.  Built with Adobe Air, the AVATAR trailer is actually an application that I install on my desktop.  Yes, the bulk of it is a three-minute movie trailer streamed via the web, but this trailer has a number of “hot spots” that over the course of the promotion were updated with ancillary content such as character back story, actor interviews, and production designs.

This got me thinking about how this non-linear approach to storytelling could be applied around the web.  As media and news becomes more of a conversation between author and audience, I could see a single, focused story grow many branches with an application like Adobe AIR, as users contribute their feedback.  Think of it like something akin to Amazon.com’s user-generated reviews, except that instead of text there are webcams and personal stories.  Additionally, you can program YouTube and Twitter feeds that populate the application on your desktop.  As AIR gets embedded in more devices in 2010 it will be interesting to see what other types of interactive applications are built.  You can download the AVATAR application here.

Image courtesy of Adobe.com.