HTML Parallel?

[Jake_Knight]

What do you think guys? At what point should we be confident enough in the internet world to think that people will actually have the freaking Macromedia plugin, so that we can stop making these boring parallel sites with worse content?

[nocrapchurch]

There's always going to be people without the plugin. There's no way we're getting around that. But you can pretty much bet that nearly everyone has at least Flash 4, and Flash 5 is hitting near 90% of the world.

If Flash 6 follows the trends of those before it, we're going to wait a couple of years before the majority of the people out there have it.

-scott
http://www.scottmanning.com/

[TheOriginalFlashDavo]

It should always be about using the right tool for the right job. You may as well ask "when will everyone have cable access so I can develop all my sites in Director".

If you can make an overwhelming business and functionality case that a site should be Flash, then that's the tool to use. On the other hand their are many kinds of sites that will always be developed using other, HTML based technologies (such as PHP, ASP...etc). Amazon will probably never, and I don't think I'd ever even contemplate, be designed with Flash. It would be entirely pointless.

[Jake_Knight]

When the first 3D movies were made for the theater, the producers didn't create a parallel movie to play in a theater beside the 3D one, because they distributed the neccessary tool for viewing to 100% of their audience. Why can't we expect the same from our most basic browsers???

[hurricaneone]

That's like asking why people don't take the full course of antibiotics when they clearly they know that it's good for them. New browsers can have plugins included (why didn't MM wait for IE7 launch???), but Joe User - who lives in a van down by the river - is still pretty happy with the IE4 version which came with his Win 95 P1 166 so he's staying with that.

Trying to expand a users comfort zone is virtually impossible, so you need to adjust for their lack of foresight and/or confidence.

[TheOriginalFlashDavo]

Originally posted by Jake_Knight
When the first 3D movies were made for the theater, the producers didn't create a parallel movie to play in a theater beside the 3D one, because they distributed the neccessary tool for viewing to 100% of their audience. Why can't we expect the same from our most basic browsers???

That comparison doesn't make sense - 3D movies lasted about as long as fluro socks. Besides, 3D movies were shown in cinemas where somebody else provided the display equipment. The web is viewable on whatever display mechanism the user has chosen.

Do you really think most user's are going to appreciate you teling them they have to get such and such? Try putting that to a client as a business case, they'll laugh you out of their office.

And the whole Flash/HTML/whatever other delivery platform you want to talk about, is only going to get more complicated as we expand into wireless and inetractive TV more and more, so learn to live with it and plan accordingly.