Disclaimer: since I haven't done Flash development, I have a financial incentive to decry its use.
Flash is great, in my mind, for two things: movies/cartoons and games. Javascript is developing rapidly, but even simplephysics in Javascript is still a bit jerky on most computers. For a rich media experience, I'm fine with Flash.
Frequently, though, designers will choose Flash for purely informative sites simply to create a pixel-perfect, shimmery look, like some bastard child of a fashion magazine and a pop-up book. Speaking solely as a user, I despise sites like Shark Energy that peg my CPU so they can have the layout slide into place and set text on a diagonal. If you try out the Flashblock Firefox extension, I think you'll be surprised at how often sites use Flash for supposedly static content like banners and how much you can improve loading time by disabling Flash by default.
As a developer, I'm philosophically opposed to proprietary standards. The Internet has been such a success, I believe, because HTML is an open standard easy for most people to build in a text editor. I think it would be a tragedy for most web design to require a product purchased from Adobe.
I expect Adobe's proprietary web solutions will be mostly dead within five years. (Apple's decision to leave Flash off the iPhone was a fantastic statement of confidence in Javascript, for example.) This step, helps managers and designers override the objection that Flash-based sites require complicated tricks to maintain decent search rankings. It makes sense for Google, but I'm disappointed as a developer and as a user.
Still, it seems like a no-brainer for the most comprehensive search engine to start indexing Flash sites once it had the ability to do so. Note also that there is no indication as to how Flash will be indexed. I share the same opinion of Flash, but my hope is that this won't significantly increase its use.
Yeah, it's sort of like a discussion I saw on an economics blog--an economics professor can rationally argue that society should optimally reduce public education expenditures without quitting his job. I think it's a good move for Google, but unfortunate for the rest of us (particularly because, unlike PDFs, I don't think Google will be flagging Flash-based sites with "[swf]").
7 comments:
Why?
Disclaimer: since I haven't done Flash development, I have a financial incentive to decry its use.
Flash is great, in my mind, for two things: movies/cartoons and games. Javascript is developing rapidly, but even simple physics in Javascript is still a bit jerky on most computers. For a rich media experience, I'm fine with Flash.
Frequently, though, designers will choose Flash for purely informative sites simply to create a pixel-perfect, shimmery look, like some bastard child of a fashion magazine and a pop-up book. Speaking solely as a user, I despise sites like Shark Energy that peg my CPU so they can have the layout slide into place and set text on a diagonal. If you try out the Flashblock Firefox extension, I think you'll be surprised at how often sites use Flash for supposedly static content like banners and how much you can improve loading time by disabling Flash by default.
As a developer, I'm philosophically opposed to proprietary standards. The Internet has been such a success, I believe, because HTML is an open standard easy for most people to build in a text editor. I think it would be a tragedy for most web design to require a product purchased from Adobe.
I expect Adobe's proprietary web solutions will be mostly dead within five years. (Apple's decision to leave Flash off the iPhone was a fantastic statement of confidence in Javascript, for example.) This step, helps managers and designers override the objection that Flash-based sites require complicated tricks to maintain decent search rankings. It makes sense for Google, but I'm disappointed as a developer and as a user.
"This step, though, helps", rather.
Still, it seems like a no-brainer for the most comprehensive search engine to start indexing Flash sites once it had the ability to do so. Note also that there is no indication as to how Flash will be indexed. I share the same opinion of Flash, but my hope is that this won't significantly increase its use.
Yeah, it's sort of like a discussion I saw on an economics blog--an economics professor can rationally argue that society should optimally reduce public education expenditures without quitting his job. I think it's a good move for Google, but unfortunate for the rest of us (particularly because, unlike PDFs, I don't think Google will be flagging Flash-based sites with "[swf]").
I'm not sure I understand the response totally but, uh, thanks.
Sorry. :(
Flash is slow and proprietary, and now people can make whole sites in it without worrying about hurting their search engine ranking?
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