I recently listed the desktop version of CardLasso on Adobe’s AIR Marketplace.  If you haven’t heard of AIR, check it out on the Adobe site.  It is the “Adobe Integrated Runtime” which allows you to run RIA apps on your desktop and distribute them with the ease of a web app.  Our AIR version of CardLasso is targeted at the Tradeshow user, and allows you to quickly gather business cards when you have no internet connection and save them locally.  You can sync them up to Lasso2Go later back at Starbucks or the hotel.

It seems like not a lot of people know about the AIR Marketplace so I wanted to write a quick note to raise awareness and let you know about the listing process.
First off, I really like their approach.  You can use your existing Adobe ID to create a publishing account on the marketplace, this took 10 seconds.

Next you enter publisher information to tell everyone a little about your company and upload a company logo.  Very fast and easy.  I was immediately approved as a publisher.

Then I filled out the listing for our application which included all the standard info you would expect, description, logos, links to download the app, etc…  (See below)

The only hard part about the listing process was sizing down graphics and screen shots to fit the requirements, but not a big deal.

Then I clicked submit.

Literally less than an hour later I had an email from Adobe with a few questions and suggestions on my listing.  I made the suggested changes and our product was live.
It was great to list a product on an online store and have it live a four hours after starting the listing process.  Granted it doesn’t have the volume that the Apple AppStore has, or the security implications that the Salesforce AppExchange listings have, but both Apple and Salesforce could learn a few things from how Adobe approaches the listing process.

It’s been live for a few days, check it out here and add a review to let us know what you think.

In case you haven’t heard we announced CardLasso back in November of last year.  We have had a lot of interest and received some great feedback since it was shown in the Dreamforce keynote by Adam Gross, namely:

• This is great, but I don’t have an iPhone
• Could I use this for Tradeshows?
• Do you have any Corporate plan options

I’m glad to say that we have now implemented each of the above suggestions and they are either live in Lasso, or are currently in beta.  

Card Entry via Web Cam
If you don’t have an iPhone you can enter cards directly from your laptop or PC with an attached USB Web Cam.  This option allows for high-volume card entry and doesn’t require a proprietary scanner (such as CardScan).  

Other Mobile Phones
We also have a new mobile offering that will allow you to enter cards from ANY mobile phone (including Blackberries which you have all asked about).  This approach will work with any phone that allows you to take a picture and send an email.

Native Blackberry Client
We are also developing a native Blackberry client to have even tighter integration with this platform, so if you are excited about the new Blackberry Storm you got for Christmas, stay tuned.

Lasso Offline for Tradeshows
If you are in marketing and go to tradeshows, you know the pain of entering hundreds or thousands of business cards.  We utilized our 2Go mobile platform and built a special offline version of Lasso that allows you to rapidly capture pictures of cards using a web cam in an offline mode and then they can be uploaded for transcription once you have Internet connectivity.

We are very excited about Lasso and it is a great showcase of what can be done with force.com Sites.

If you are interested head over to http://www.lasso2go.com to sign up for a $1.99 trial to give this a spin.