Flash Kit v2.0 - Your ideas here!

[karnak]

Isn't this thread about how to make flashkit better? not about how to make money..?
..eh so pmineault already mentioned this but I would strongly suggest a closed FAQ forum for the boards, surely this could become a prominent forum and extremely helpful for those that want "personalized" help for things and also want a single forum to search through... this could be a great addition to the boards!

good luck, hope the new site is coming along smoothly.

[Nik128]

Definitely Karnak
Everything is connected
More money --> Faster FK --> Quicker browsing --> Less people being "absent" --> More work --> more flash content at FK --> more fun ----> and so on...

...and we all should help to make this possible
I love this site so much, besides learning flash, I've learned so much more about other programs

[chinkok]

I really would like flashkit to make an icon page for the community. I was in the mist of developing a website and having trouble finding good icons. Ended up I have to draw every single one of them my self

[Thalios]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tobba
[B]In the tutorials, i think you should find another solution
when it comes to all the pages, There are to little text on one page, i get annoyed when i read a couple of lines and then have to load another page.
You should also consider making a printable version of each tutorial.


I agree, this is the reason I came to this forum. There are so many tutorials that I would love to walk through. Printing them out and walking through the tut is my preferred way vs. switching back and forth from my browser and my development application.

An idea for generating some revenue .. maybe it would be possible to get clients and developers together on your site, and FK take a percentage ??

Thalios ... getting better everyday

[skookumblue]

Originally posted by B00MER
From the way it seems none of you guys on this board have any faith in flash WHAT-SO-EVER! No wonder Flash has such a bad name in the usuability department. People like you guys on here think Flash has its place. Personally I feel Flash will overcome HTML in due time, ...If not Flash will have no place on the web other than lame ass intros. see http://www.skipintro.com

I love this site!


Anything you can do in HTML 99% of the time you can do it in Flash faster, smaller, cleaner, scalable, and backend driven....

I agree with Boomer almost 100% here. I can't beleive so many people supposedly 'in the know' with Flash think that Flash has to be heavy and slow. It's what you make it, garbage in=garbage out. Get a grip folks. The only reason I would consider making a site of this magnitude in HTML is the rapid development environments (dreamweaver/Ultradev etc.) that will speed up the development process. And, I'm sure this argument will subside as my F5/xml/asp libraries get more and more powerful. Also, one member mentioned the proxy/firewall problems, and these are real, as some sys admins won't let Flash content through. Mainly because they associate Flash content with some of the crap that's out there.

I owe a tonne of my Flash learning to this site though, so as to not be too far off topic, I will give my $.02 worth.

As much as people like to Microsoft bash, Windows 2000/ASP/SQL platform would be waayyyy more flexible, scalable and robust as a platform for FK2. (if used properly of course) You've got load balancing, advanced server cacheing, etc.

I feel the donation Idea is the best for revenue generation. Enough of the people here would gladly donate $1 - $5 bills to get you through the rough spots. After the hardware upgrade/makeover is done, you can address wether or not Internet.com is pulling their weight in generating revenue on your site (I assume that's why they're there) and work on the ad/sponsorship deals to keep things free as I'm sure that's what most users want in the long run.

As for site design, all your content is already relevant and fairly well organized, and all improvements you've made so far to the site have been good, so I have faith you'll continue to do it well. Don't be too heavily influenced by the lame asses.

Best of luck, this is probably the site I have visited the most of all on the internet and I don't want it to be a victim of its success.

[banglafreak]

i think the paypal idea needs to be started right away. the sooner the better, dont wait till 2.0 to generate profit!

[Rog]

I honestly think that the Flashkit team is intelligent enough to know this already, but how about a reality check for anyone suggesting that every HTML site on the web can be replaced with Flash: There is a LOT of functionality in HTML that Flash simply doesn’t have, nor should it need to because it was designed to compliment HTML in most cases and only replace it when a site contains entirely “rich content”.

Take these forums for instance. Look at all of those radio buttons and checkboxes. Tab through them. Scroll up and down the page using a mouse-wheel. While some of that functionality can be parroted to a certain degree in Flash, it’s only done with a good deal of effort and even then often there are problems (use a Form field in Flash 5 with Netscape 6, type for a bit then hit backspace and watch the browser go back to a previous page!).

Flash finally has somewhat usable tools for server-side control with Flash 5, but that end is still very immature, relying on parsing POST/GET requests to exchange data, which seems absolutely archaic to those of us accustomed to nice server-side languages like PHP combined with SQL servers, etc.

Flash is a great tool when used appropriately, but maintaining a text-filled content site with Flash makes as much sense as trying to create sweeping animations with server-pushed HTML pages. It’s moronic. Use the right tools for the job.

Ever notice that Macromedia doesn't use 100% Flash?

[gss]

You should have.....

1 - Quicker site
2 - Made in flash 5 for more style
3 - Less clutter, more simplicity

[Miitchell]

i think that maybe you guys should check to see which members are still active. I think there is probably quite a few that should be wiped out. Maybe not, but for some reason I am thinking there is.

[Sinecure]

I think that converting to an all flash site wouldn't be good... it's not as effective as a database driven site etc....And I think that you should also keep the site free for all users... you can have an Optional Fee for more features etc but don't make it required.. for example look at screamdesign.com they moved over to a pay site and now no one is willing to pay it and they are out a whole lot of money.. truth is if you make it pay people will find another place to go.

The bandwidth issues are a problem but they can resolved very easily.. I think that fk should difinitly start selling memorabilia or even produce a flashkit.com Flash tutorials CD or something like that... People would buy it (I think) That would in turn produce more money for the site and you could afford more upgrades to the servers etc..But I might add you have to keep the majority of the site free otherwise people are just going to find somewhere else to go..

I am really looking forward to v 2.0 I think you should stick with the same color scheme and just spruce up the page a little...as far as executive sections and the sort I think it should be totally up to the fk staff.. after all it's amazing how much time and effort you put into this site and i think that you do an awesome job.. getting you to create more of these complicated sections etc should be totally up to you guys..

Anyway that's my 2 cents.. hope it helps out...l8ter

[Rog]

The collective authors/editors of Flashkit could easily take their experience and write a Flashkit book on using Flash. I'm certain that would be very well recieved. For myself and I'm sure others as well, it's easier to go through a tutorial with hard-copy in front of you while you work on the screen rather than hoping back and forth between your own work and a tutorial on a website. Not that I'm dissing the website's usefulness, far from it, just that a hard copy of some of this material would be a very welcome addition.

[casthigh]

dudes at FLASHKIT:

You´re looking for ways to make the site more financially viable to generate sufficient revenue to support the operation??

Are you kidding? You´re owned by INTERNET.COM: this "Internet Holding" has enough M1 to support 1000 Sites like this one (..and pay my rent in the meantime....!.

If you´re willing to start making an additional profit source I find that Cool (I come everyday here and I´ll have no problem to pay a fee), but making an argument like "we´re growing way to fast and we need money" sounds silly to your loyal members...

btw, This site is the number 1 Flash resource on the Net!!
KUDOS for your awesome work & Vision ,and I´ll be very happy to pay for a membership (..but please without bull****)

CASTHIGH

[DJ_SFinKz]

Maybe it is time to close this thread - it is getting to loooooooooooooooooong

[Lance Bellers]

I would love a sister section about intergration with other applications - especailly Dreamweaver

[Nik128]

Originally posted by Rog
The collective authors/editors of Flashkit could easily take their experience and write a Flashkit book on using Flash. I'm certain that would be very well recieved. For myself and I'm sure others as well, it's easier to go through a tutorial with hard-copy in front of you while you work on the screen rather than hoping back and forth between your own work and a tutorial on a website. Not that I'm dissing the website's usefulness, far from it, just that a hard copy of some of this material would be a very welcome addition.

Sounds like fun, that's a good idea, I'm sure the book would be sold good, but I don't think collective authors/editors of Flashkit could easily find their time to write a book together, especially at this point when FK is under heavy load and many other new things are under construction. Keep that in mind.
cheers

[ryanjcooper]

I think that with your access to professionals, you could develop the world's most respected Flash / Generator / ActionScript certification tests (Like the MCSE or whatever) and charge reasonably for it. Partner with BrainBench for the testing technology (Their Flash test is one of their most popular.), Publish a certification prep book, establish new standards for flash on the web, etc. This would be THE certification to have.

[Chiklit]

I think a faster loading site I have a cable modem and even on that it's slow. Also I think there should be more then 3 sound FX/loops per page becouse I only get to look at 3 then I have to wait 20 seconds for the next page to load and so on. So I think you should put more on the page like 10 or something.

[Sander Kessels]

Ultrashock is a good example why you should NOT use flash for a resource-site. I saw it, waited, waited, waited, waited. Patience gone, closed browser, will probably not go back again because I HATE WAITING on webcontent. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Yes, I've got a broadband connection but here's yet another example when flash should NOT be used. There are only a handful flashdesigners out there that know how to make a cool, streaming flash-website under 15 K, which IS possible. That's the way Flash should be used if you create a resource-site, not this way.

Sander

Lollibomb

[texcm]

FK is great. I hope you can sort out speed problems.
For money making why not try getting authorised from Macromedia. Like in dreamweaver the refernce section is from some guys actual book the Flash help section could be supplied by flash kit. That way FK is branded alongside Flash. If Macromedia don't go for it try Adobe that should sling mud in Macromedias eye. Or publish some books based on all the tutorial material online.
Keep up the good work.

[persaltier]

i looked at the thread when it was a little over 2 pages long, and then now that it's 5, i haven't had the chance to go through all the posts, but i haven't seen any mention of JSP as a load-bearing possibility. PHP is great, I use it on my own sites that I develop, and I love it. ASP is probably a good technology as well (general sarcasm) (although I try to stay in the open-source world as much as possible), but having dealt with JSP a little bit, I know that the servlets that are an integral part to the JSP technology can help tremendously with the load-bearing that large sites like FK take on. Your DB would be easily integrated, as this is one of Java's main draws...and you could even keep the PHP scripts for certain parts being that you'd probably run the servers on a Linux box w/ Apache installed (and the mod_php is already there). I see that you impliment Apache SSI as well for your includes... either PHP or JSP can take care of this and do so on a more efficient scale as well. Yes, faster equipment and more of it would help as well (what about the connection of the servers to a major backbone? Or having a server in the US as well as in Australia, and depending on where you are coming from, you are automatically redirected to the closer server...or the server with more overhead available at the time). PayPal is a great idea to generate revenue, and I agree with the thought of staying away from a Flash-based website. You guys and gals have done an amazing job with this site....thanks for everything so far and best of luck in the future.