[thelist] flash detection

[Ben Dyer]

At 01:31 PM 5/7/2001, you wrote:
>OK, (very generously) 10% of web users might not have the Player. So all 
>you have to do is find more than 10% more visits because of Flash.

OK, this is definitely Macromedia propoganda.  Macromedia would have you 
believe that every computer on planet earth, including mainframes, 
text-based OSes, television sets, etc. is equipped with Flash.  This simply 
is not the case.  I get this all the time.  Many, many, many people do not 
have Flash.  Macromedia's own numbers have to be skewed. (I alone have 
downloaded Flash probably seven or eight times for the same computer.  This 
is similar to Hotmail's 80m users or whatever they think they're up to.  I 
have about five.)

>I can't prove it, but seems obvious to me that the average Internet user 
>really digs Flash ... I have no other explanation for how a Flash site can 
>get over 50K visitors in the first month with a marketing/promotion budget 
>of $0.

True.  But my point is, people dig Flash *once*.  And that's it.  Then it's 
not cool.  How many visitors did that site get in the second month?  The 
second time, Flash is tedious.  Very, very tedious.  And even using heavy 
compression, most Flash animations also take forever to load on a 56.6 (or, 
heaven forbid, 28.8, which my parents are currently stuck with).  Flash has 
zero replay value.

   First Time: That was cool!
   Second Time: That was allright.
   Third Time: For God sakes, I want to get to the information already!

Of course, the last two are assuming there's something other than just the 
Flash in the first place, which sometimes is not the case.

It's like this: everything in technology follows that Bell curve (you know, 
early adaptors, average users, slow adaptors, etc.), not just technology 
acceptance, but also technology backlash.  We're seeing the beginnings of 
the "I'm sick of it" phase with Flash (same as video games ca.1983, desktop 
publishing ca.1988, multimedia CD-ROMs ca.1993 and personal web sites 
ca.1997 before it).  Many of us early adaptors are now quite tired of Flash 
and the general public will be too.

I'm just getting out of the way.

--Ben


<!-----------------------
Ben Dyer
Senior Internet Developer
Imaginuity Interactive
http://www.imaginuity.com
//---------------------->