I refrained from doing any sort of predictions or year in review posts this year, but one thing I am excited to watch in the next year or two is Adobe Apollo and what types of applications are built from it. If you aren’t familiar with Apollo, this blog post does a nice job explaining it and going through the history of it. In short, it allows the bridging of web applications with the desktop in ways that are beneficial.

When I first heard about Apollo, it didn’t immediately strike me what kind of applications these would really be, but I had a feeling that some cool stuff would be done with it. I just ran across a post about eBay developing an Apollo application using eBay’s APIs for working with their auction marketplace that looks very cool. Bridging the web with the desktop allows for a quick and powerful auction management application that can tie into local storage on your desktop along with desktop notifications of things happening with your auctions.

While San Dimas makes managing auctions easier for the hardened eBay veterans, it’s also an experiment in using Flash to make it easy to get started on eBay. You can create an auction and then use the Apollo to connect to your web cam and take pictures of the item you are selling. Those pictures are stored on the hard drive and can be added to the listing. In addition, it allows buyers to search and monitor your current bids. It can also give you desktop notifications for your auctions so you can track it and make sure you win the Wii that you’re overpaying for.

So, Apollo is making things faster, more powerful, and yet also easier to use and simplifying the use of eBay. Sounds pretty promising if it delivers. Imagine what other applications could be developed for Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc.