FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sierra Bravo Develops Fallon's Vision for Skimmer

Form meets function in the most advanced Adobe AIR app yet — a lifestreaming application pooling Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger and YouTube

MINNEAPOLIS, March 25, 2009 — When Fallon Minneapolis wanted to create Skimmer, a new lifestreaming service, they turned to web development partners Sierra Bravo to program a complex Adobe AIR desktop application giving users a single interface for multiple social media sources.

Skimmer is a consolidated dashboard pooling one’s Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger and YouTube. Users of Skimmer more effectively invest time engaging social media through a rich lifestreaming experience, available for free download at www.fallon.com/skimmer.

Fallon’s elegant design helps Skimmer standout among other lifestreaming tools, and it took the close collaboration of Fallon and 16 of Sierra Bravo’s 60+ web developers to create the most advanced Adobe AIR app on the web. Read about the technology choices that built Skimmer at the blog of Sierra Bravo senior programmer/analyst Chris Black here.

“As web partners, we live in the intersection where form meets function,” said Tom O’Neill, Sierra Bravo’s vice president of software development. “Having partnered with Fallon on several of their client’s interactive projects, we play to each other’s strengths with barely a wasted keystroke. They bring the design and strategy, and we bring enough nerd cred to create code for unprecedented social media mash-ups. Skimmer was one big playground for us here at the Nerdery.”

“We see Skimmer as a marriage of form and function,” said Chris Wiggins, creative director, Fallon. “People spend hours every day engaging with various types of social content, yet the user interface on most services leaves a lot of room for improvement; it should be delightful. Designing experiences is one of our strengths at Fallon. We saw Skimmer as a way to share that with the world.”

“For the past five months, my army of nerds devoted most of their waking hours to making Skimmer a success,” said Sierra Bravo software development manager Mike Woods. “They’ve worked tirelessly to tackle all the objectives, pumping out endless builds for testing, squashing bugs, and really going beyond the call of duty. Their dedication to making Skimmer the best it could be was awe-inspiring and the driving force behind the launch.”

As a part of its debut, Skimmer will play a prominent role in Fallon’s new corporate Web site. All employees’ social media activity and updates will be published via Skimmer on a special section of Fallon.com, allowing the world to see and interact with the personal brands behind the Fallon brand.

“We specialize in breathing life into the strategy and design of agencies,” said Sierra Bravo’s Tom O’Neill. “We get to participate in interactive projects that allow us to push the envelope; Skimmer destroyed that envelope. I am obviously biased, but I’m also humbled and proud of the work and ingenuity of our developers — coupled with Fallon’s beautiful design, the end result is a platform that presents Fallon to the world with the elegancy and credibility their brand deserves.”

Skimmer benefits:

• Saves time by providing an efficient, consolidated view of the most frequently used social networking activities.
• Lets users view content on a per-friend basis instead of only a per-service basis.
• Easy-to-use platform for interactions in social networks, including one- click responses, multimedia content in-line, automatic URL shortening, easy uploads.
• Provides a well-designed, uncluttered interface for your most frequently used activities.
• Spotlights multimedia viewing through a refined interface design.
• Lives on Mac or PC desktops as an Adobe AIR app, freeing browser for other uses.

Skimmer features:

• See all your activity in one place and customize how it appears to your contacts.
• See and respond to multimedia updates and content from your friends’ activities in Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger and YouTube, all in one place.
• Cross-post updates to Facebook and/or Twitter.
• Upload TwitPics and shorten links before posting URLs.
• View TwitPics in-line; no need to click through to the Web.
• View Flickr photos in a photostream, or in sets or a slideshow.
• View YouTube videos in-line or full-screen.
• Filter feed content by keyword, service, or contact groups.
• Easily upload photos and video.
• View as a widget, in a window, or full-screen.

About Sierra Bravo Corporation

Sierra Bravo Corporation is a software development company focused on helping organizations to improve efficiency while maximizing their investment in existing training, processes, and technology. Founded in 2003 by three innovative programmers, Sierra Bravo has grown to more than 50 people by helping companies strengthen their business through technical solutions. We provide full technology partnerships to small and medium enterprises, including web development services, custom programming, and hardware and software sales and support. If you want your organization to work smarter, work with Sierra Bravo. Visit us online at www.sierra-bravo.com.

Media Contacts

Luke Bucklin
President
Office: (952) 948-1211 x 1011
Cell: (612) 282-1043
Email:

Mark Hurlburt
Director of Marketing
Office: (952) 948-1211 x 1018
Email:

International e-Learning

Our client, a $75 billion international provider of food, agricultural and risk management products and services, has 153,000 employees in 66 countries. They provide ongoing training and education for employees scattered across the globe. Despite an alarmingly short timeline and shifting project requirements, Sierra Bravo’s programmers turned an open-source project into a customized online international e-Learning platform. Read the whole case study.