[thelist] flash detection
Erik Mattheis
gozz at gozz.com
Mon May 7 13:12:45 CDT 2001
>No. I didn't know you were 100% Flash, so perhaps the advice
>would be better directed at someone higher up the value chain.
>BUT if I had a Flash contractor who was able to tell me (as a consultant)
>"Actually, Flash may not be the best tool for this objective"
Actually, I did do that recently, and it seems I was wrong. It was a
site for a small business in a super specific niche with insane rates
for their services - to me every hit counted - they wanted a big
(file size and time of viewing wise) Flash intro which outlined their
process - I told them 50% of their visitors would never make it past
the intro ... from the log files it appears I was almost exactly
right, however, they had what seems to me a super high percentage of
return visitors (to the Flash intro) and in that first month, the
only place anyone could have known the URL was from reading ads in
classifieds ... in otherwords, 100% "good" hits - they got two new
clients through the site that first month - their goal was one.
And clarifying what I do, or like to do most, is stuff that
integrates Flash with a database ...
>then my opinion of that contractor would go up a couple of
>notches, because they're looking after the best interests of
>the client, rather than their own rapacious once.
>
>I *have* worked with contractors whose opinion was "The
>answer's Flash. Now what was the question?" They haven't
>got any repeat work.
>
>Given that longevity in business is all around building longterm
>sustainable relationships with well-paying clients (the kind
>I work with), which do you think is likely to be the better
>strategy for a Flash contractor?
If it sounds like I'm saying Flash is the be-all and end-all of
everything WWW you're reading that into it, certainly there are
drawbacks which sometimes outweigh the benefits ... however, it's a
demonstrable fact that Flash can extend the browser to display most
types of information more efficiently (and in a more captivating
package if that's important, usually yes) (and in a way that
streamlines the development process if that's important, usually yes)
than straight HTML.
Maybe most Flash people couldn't set a cookie or connect to a
datasource to save their soul - but it's amazing what it can do if
you know that stuff. Many of the perceived limitations (bookmarking,
search engines, difficulty in editing content) if you understand the
kind of things that are spoken of here - and it seems to me that it
would be easier to come to that point by knowing the other stuff
first and applying it to Flash ... I donno, I think some peoplew are
missing out on something very very cool.
--
- Erik Mattheis
"Everything's better"
http://gozz.com/
(612) 827 3963
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