Most of the people I met at the NAB didn't comprehend net video yet. They're still in the broadcast/cable mentality. The idea of somebody doing a show from their garage and having millions of people watch it draws a blank expression. They certainly don't get generation Y. Not yet anyway, but there is a glimmer of hope.

Adobe launched Creative Suite 3 (CS 3) at the show. CS3 is a bundled package designed to take the independent from video to photo to website to audience seamlessly. It's obvious Adobe sees this as a vertically integrated production platform for independent producers to create and broadcast to the world from anywhere.

One of their new tools is Adobe Media Player, which threatens to be a Windows media player killer. It basically allows users to download flash content and take it with them on the go.

The biggest change in CS 3 is the new Flash Media Server.

Adobe debuted Flash media server Monday night, at their party at the Renaissance Hotel. It represents the end of the food chain of their Creative Suite -- Now flash media server is extremely cool, as it allows small users to do streaming video over the net. But I think Adobe missed the point with their own product.

Adobe's biggest selling point for this product was DRM. DRM? Are you kidding me? To me it seems like everybody is trying to run away from DRM right now. At the launch of Adobe Flash Media Server, DRM was all they could seem to talk about. And talk about it they did: "you can totally lock down your content and allow only the people you want to watch it and have privileges to it."

"Wow," I joked, "So I so it could set this up so nobody would be allowed to watch it?"

But the joke was missed...

"Yeah, it's that good." Was the reply with great pride.

Okay, so I'm Adobe and I decide my biggest selling point of my product is going to be how many people can't view the media, what it doesn't allow people to do? Like I said before, most of the people I talked with still haven't grasped Internet video -- and its viral aspects.

Maybe I'm being a little hard on Adobe for their choice of selling points. After all, we all want to protect our content... or least have control over it. But here's the thing: we live in an age where everything you put on the Internet is potentially viral. That means no DRM is going to work for you.

The bottom line about Adobe CS 3 is (DRM sales point aside) that it is truly amazing and has made some virtual leaps with this release -- particularly in the sound area. Adobe has a commitment to to vertically integrate with tools from production to website to audience. That's cool with or without DRM.

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Kelly Holtzclaw is the CEO of Plaacr.com, a product placement community for net video and new media. He can be contacted at kelly@plaacr.com.

And not just music...