Community Features and Hosting Capabilities to Be Integrated with Creative Cloud

Adobe took another decisive step into the cloud yesterday with the announcement that it had bought Behance, a social-media platform for portfolio-sharing among creatives with more than 1 million members. The move will bolster Adobe's plans to bring a strong community element to its Creative Cloud offering, including professional portfolio hosting, the company said.
 
The future of Behance is now slated to include integration of private content-sharing capabilities, the ability to post works in progress directly from Creative Suite applications, the incorporation of activity feeds from Behance into Adobe's Creative Cloud Connection desktop sync application, and Behance ProSite access (for publishing portfolios) for Creative Cloud members at no additional charge. 
 
Behance CEO Scott Belsky will join Adobe as VP, Behance, reporting to Digital Media SVP/GM David Wadhwani. Behance's scheduled 99U conference in New York next May will be held "with Adobe's full support,"  and support for Behance customers will continue to be provided by Behance staff, Adobe said. In fact, Behance said in a blog post (http://blog.behance.net/teamblog/behance-adobe-serving-the-future-of-the-creative-world)that its team would "remain intact" at its offices in New York City.
 
Adobe said users will continue to be able to use Behance without a Creative Cloud account, but the purchase definitely steps up Adobe's efforts to make its subscription-based cloud offerings a kind of first-class ticket to the Creative Suite. Some users not on the subscription plan have started grumbling as software updates are being provided to Creative Cloud users first — a clear perk of membership. Earlier this month, Adobe said more than 1 million users had signed up for the Creative Cloud platform, including "approximately" 326,000 paid subscribers.
 
"When we launched Creative Cloud earlier this year, we committed that we would give members new value on an ongoing basis," said Adobe's Wadhwani in a prepared statement. "Behance will play a key role in Adobe's efforts to serve the creative world in the years to come and will accelerate our efforts to enable a more open and collaborative creative community."
 
For more information: Behance; Adobe Creative Cloud