Flash Web 2.0′s Outcast? Not Even Close

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Rey Bango emailed me about this post over on Standard Web Standards. I saw it a lot in my feeds and glanced at it but sadly didn’t look into it with more detail (it’s been a long week). But after being pinged by Rey I took a look and I completely and utterly disagree.

He starts by listing a bunch of websites that drive traffic – Flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, Bloglines, MySpace, Wikipedia, Technorati and YouTube; then goes on to say that only one of them uses Flash. Really? YouTube obviously uses Flash. But MySpace doesn’t use Flash? All of the people with MySpace aren’t using Flash to make their pages more interactive? You can’t make Flash badges with Flickr? Those creepy text-to-speech ads on Technorati aren’t Flash? (okay, that’s a bad example).

It really continues to amaze me the total misrepresentation of Flash. When you want to build rich, interactive, rich-media themed websites, you have to use Flash. Eventually, “WFP/E” is coming, but right now, it’s all Flash. And those kind of sites are on the rise. Hell, they’re the entire POINT of Web 2.0 in some cases.

Flash picks up where Ajax leaves off. Ajax has made people rethink what the web is capable of. But you can only get so excited about eliminating the page refresh before you start to wonder what else is out there. That’s when Flash enters the conversation. And a TON of Web 2.0 companies (and old web companies) have figured that out. Web 2.0′s pariah? More like Web 2.0′s savior.

[tags]Flash, Web 2.0[/tags]

Related posts:

  1. Classing Up MySpace
  2. MySpace Launches Video Sharing Service and it Uses Flash
  3. Flash and Web 2.0 Logos
  4. A Day Without Flash
  5. No Sleep For Ryan
  • http://aralbalkan.com Aral Balkan

    I believe that the problem is that there is still a lot of ignorance about the capabilities of Flash within the greater web community. I see looks of surprise daily on developers’ faces when I show them what Flash can do today (as opposed to what they remember Flash being five years ago.)

  • http://www.brandonellis.org/ Brandon Ellis

    History is an account of bad things that we remember.

    This is the same old argument that the Flash community has been dealing with for years. People that are not already sold on Flash probably don’t have a mental list (or a enormous bookmark folder) of very very good Flash content. Folks are eager to talk about the ads and crap people are building with Flash, the 3 meg intros, no preloader, no checking for the Flash player, blah blah blah. Those people have a very narrow vision of the web and the desktop and the future.

    My history of working with those types of people has been long but they all seem to warm up to the idea of Flash either from a) working with someone like me who is always trying to spread the gospel of Flash or b) their job requirements force them to accept it. Either way, it tends to work itself out.

  • http://www.mikebritton.com MIke Britton

    People always rail against the unknown. It’s easier to dismiss technologies you don’t understand than it is to produce good examples of them.

    I can’t wait to Google around for the naysayers in a couple years. What shortsighted tripe.

  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    I had the fourth comment there, for awhile anyway… it’s not there now. Here’s a copy, though, from an unrefreshed browser window I’ve kept open:

    –

    64-bit native-code seems to be one of the few remaining actual objections these days.

    Code hasn’t been rewritten for 64-bit applications regardless of operating system yet. For info why, try this term at Google:
    “64-bit” (site:weblogs.macromedia.com OR site:blogs.adobe.com)

    In the meantime other people are using emulators to achieve 32-bit functionality when using 64-bit browsers on 64-bit hardware.

    (I’m not sure of Regnard’s main point… if it’s “web20 dont use flash”, then Robert Scoble was saying the precise opposite yesterday, and Apollo is seeing interest from heavy-hitters among JS/HTML specialists. Your call.)

    jd/adobe

  • Phillip Kerman

    For sure, the only accurate claim in those comments was the 64bit version (of the player I assume)… as if Flash would all of a sudden be accepted by those folks.

    I think the premise of that post is that these sites he mentions don’t use Flash… but they do. I still think he must have a point inside there but the justification (that claim) is faulty. Plus, I think he’s seeing things in a historical sequence based on his personal experience–not fact. (Like it sounds as if web standards came after Ajax.) Then the final point that people expect a different experience is just whacky. If that’s the case then Flash would be dandy if only people followed some conventions. I agree that people should leverage the user’s expectations… but why can’t Flash do that?

    If he simply changed the point to “bad Flash sites will go away in the web 2.0 era” I’d agree completely. But the killer point I find is that–last time I checked the dude who coined the Web 2.0 term was on Macromedia’s board.

    I think there’s plenty of ignorance out there–but this particular post still makes me scratch my head.

  • http://blog.dkb.mailhome.com David Blanar

    Hi all – my chief complaint about Flash is that text is locked away. Flash is superior in feel and experience, but the fact I can’t copy-and-paste from it is a dealbreaker.

    I manipulate content in many forms. And, those forms which are beyond access – akin to early PDFs – are of no use to me.

    Solve it, and Flash will be my medium of choice. Until then, I’ll gawk at cool implementations but won’t seriously consideration it for my web sites.

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