There any serious statistics showing Flash popularity?

[-]

I wondering if there are any serious data showing compatibilty in % of
flash web sites.

Help!

TIA

 

[dorayme]

I wondering if there are any serious data showing compatibilty in % of
flash web sites.

Help!

Yes there are some extremely serious, nay, _grave_ stats. 99.999%
of the members of alt.html have bad things to say about 100% of
flash sites. 0.001% have good things to say in vague terms and
then only on condition that all the others are stridently
critical. The mirror is true of this last: 0.001% have bad things
to say in vague terms and then only on condition that all the
others are stridently effusive. If you need more detailed stats,
don't hesitate to ask.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

I wondering if there are any serious data showing compatibilty in % of
flash web sites.

I looked at http://www.w3schools.com and found the below statement in
their section on flash.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Who can View Flash?

In September 2000, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix,
conducted a study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have
Flash preinstalled. The results show that 96.4% of Web users can
experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and
install a player.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

A very high percentage of computer users have used computers with
flash installed for a long time. Some of the lesser used OSs will
allow installing of special programs to view flash when an official
version is not made for their OS. However these versions are often one
or two upgrades behind the most recent official flash versions for the
more popular browsers. If you are interested in the small number of
little used OSs, it pays to write your flash in perhaps versions 7 or
8 rather than the current 9 version. I often write in 7 or 8, but the
flash player I have installed is a 9. So far as I have seen, the
latest player usually plays flash movies written in an earlier
version, but the reverse sometimes is not the case if you used
something that is new in the latest version. If you do not use flash
much, there are programs more limited that the official ones that cost
much less and meet the needs of many.

Like all compressed media formats, flash has advantages and
disadvantages depending on what you want to do. It can make videos of
fair quality for slow connections unlike some of the other video file
types. But using the newer FLV/SWF format and high bit rates, it also
can make very high quality videos suitable only for broadband viewing.
There is no video format best for everything, especially if it needs
great compression - different video formats respond to great
compression in different ways. There is now a great glut of video
formats and many are used for special purposes such as for viewing on
various mobile devices etc. There always will be a few to many users
who can not view any video format. Thus, if you are selling things,
you need to provide something else other than just video to not lose
potential customers. Many things have been used such as a link to a
still picture, a text description, etc. Although I have no statistics
to quote, I doubt if many people will bother to download a player for
any video format even if your page tries to direct them to a download
site, if the video format you use is not supported on the computer.

The reasons for the bad reputation of flash in many quarters are the
excesses often used by high pressure ad execs. Many are annoyed by
flash displays that auto start, especially if they can not be turned
off. I am most annoyed by flash displays that rapidly flash images or
text at you at a rapid rate and displays that expand greatly and
obscure text when you just pass the cursor over them, perhaps on your
way to click some link not related to the flash.

 

[Travis Newbury]

I wondering if there are any serious data showing compatibilty in % of
flash web sites.

What do you mean "compatibility"? Do you mean how many people have
the potential of seeing Flash? Well that number is in the 90% range.

But why does it matter? If using a blue background brings you more
business than using a red background, then you would be dumb to not
use the Blue background. If using Flash brings you more business than
not using flash, then you would be dumb to not use Flash.

Use the technology(s) that brings you the most business. It is a
simple concept that seems to elude many people here.

 

[asdf]

What do you mean "compatibility"? Do you mean how many people have
the potential of seeing Flash? Well that number is in the 90% range.

But why does it matter? If using a blue background brings you more
business than using a red background, then you would be dumb to not
use the Blue background. If using Flash brings you more business than
not using flash, then you would be dumb to not use Flash.

Use the technology(s) that brings you the most business. It is a
simple concept that seems to elude many people here.

Hurrah, at last. Well said.

 

[El Kabong]

Hurrah, at last. Well said.

I agree wholeheartedly, even if the site is not about commerce. The
designer's client is the Web site owner, which may very well be himself.
Regardless, the site should please the owner. This is not to say that the
designer doesn't have an obligation to offer solid, practical advice
regarding design but, in the end, it's the owner who has to be happy.

Could he be wrong and his decisions cause him to actually lose sales, (or
visitors if the site is not about commerce?) Of course. The wonderful thing
about free market democracy is we all have the right to fail miserably,
utterly and totally... then get up and try again.

So if Flash trips the owner's trigger, he should have it, and who knows,
maybe he knows *his* clientele better than the designer knows them. It's
win-win for the designer because, he might get more work getting rid of the
Flash later on.

El

 

[dorayme]

It's
win-win for the designer because, he might get more work getting rid of the
Flash later on.

Now you have your thinking cap on...

 

[Harlan Messinger]

So if Flash trips the owner's trigger, he should have it, and who knows,
maybe he knows *his* clientele better than the designer knows them.

Or maybe he doesn't. Business people think *lots* of things about
customers that aren't true. The weird thing is that business execs who
wouldn't imagine they have the skills to design their own logos instead
of getting a graphic designer's advice or to write their own advertising
copy instead of getting an advertising firm to create their campaigns or
to decorate their own office buildings instead of hiring an interior
design consultant, will see things like Flash and go "ooh, pretty" and
assume that they know better than their web consultant about how the
advantages will trade off against the disadvantages.

 

[Travis Newbury]

Or maybe he doesn't. Business people think *lots* of things about
customers that aren't true....

Lets use MTV.com as an example. MTV.com went from an HTML site to an
all flash site because they knew their visitors liked the way MTV was
presenting itself with Flash. Well the Business side said "Hey lets
make the entire site Flash based because they like Flash so much!"

And they did. But after watching the site for a while, they notices a
decrease in visitors and revenue from the site. So they went back to
a HTML site with some heavy usage of Flash where it was most
appropriate.

The moral is, keep an eye on your site. Tweak, change, try new
things, and monitor the results. Even after you find the right
combination that works for your site, you still have to continually
monitor and maintain the site. A website should be fluid in the sense
that you are continually tweaking to get the most out of it that you
can. As your audience, product, service, technology, and a million
other factors change, so should your site.

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

Or maybe he doesn't. Business people think *lots* of things about
customers that aren't true.

which is very much true. It's all about out of the box thinking, and
business people need an outsider to tell them how they are being
perceived by their customers, they can't know it from themselves. If you
just fulfill the wishes of your client, then you are not doing him a
favour. If he wishes to see 'Flash' on his new website, then you have to
step back, and argue about the pros and cons of such a technology.
That's why he has hired a designer to do the job for him, so you as a
designer knows it better...

just my two cents
bernhard

 

[Bergamot]

MTV.com went from an HTML site to an all flash site
But after watching the site for a while, they notices a
decrease in visitors and revenue from the site. So they went back to
a HTML site with some heavy usage of Flash where it was most
appropriate.

I would have expected a different outcome from a site in the
entertainment industry. Very interesting.

 

[Travis Newbury]

I would have expected a different outcome from a site in the
entertainment industry. Very interesting.

I will try to find the URL to the announcement that their all flash
site is going away. IT was an interesting read. they did what a
company should do, that is, they listened to their visitors, and took
actions to make the site better for the majority (not all)

 

[Harlan Messinger]

Lets use MTV.com as an example. MTV.com went from an HTML site to an
all flash site because they knew their visitors liked the way MTV was
presenting itself with Flash. Well the Business side said "Hey lets
make the entire site Flash based because they like Flash so much!"
>
And they did. But after watching the site for a while, they notices a
decrease in visitors and revenue from the site. So they went back to
a HTML site with some heavy usage of Flash where it was most
appropriate.

I didn't know that. Good story. It is true that websites for multimedia
companies are themselves multimedia enterprises. People come to them for
the entertainment. But on the other hand those who just want to catch up
on story lines or see the schedule for the coming week shouldn't need
Flash for that.

Last night I clicked on an ad for the Heineken Draft Keg because I was
interested in its features and the technology behind it--not because I
wanted dancing and music and flashy graphics and difficult-to-use
controls. (I happen to have been watching "So You Think You Can Dance"
at the time, so I definitely did not go the Heineken URL for lack of
entertainment.) It's a good thing I do have Flash because if I had been
using my Treo at the time, Heineken would have displayed a message (I
know, I turned off Javascript and refreshed the page to check) telling
me to install Flash, and would not have taken the opportunity to give me
the information I had gone there to find, something they could have had
a copywriter write up in an extra thirty minutes.

 

[rf]

I wondering if there are any serious data showing compatibilty in % of
flash web sites.

I address the word "popularity" in the subject rather than the word
"compatibility" in the body:

Consider http://www.perisherblue.com.au/winter/snowreport/index.php , where
I live for parts of the winter. The, to me, totally intrusive flash of a
bloody flying flag advertising a motorway, of all things, almost prevents me
from reading the content of this page. It's the 'is that a tiger in the
trees?' subconscious compulsion. If it moves it _must_ be looked at.

Even worse is http://www.perisherblue.com.au/winter/snowreport/v_eight.php ,
a picture I like to sort of use as wallpaper on a spare screen (the page
refreshes every 30 minutes, I can see the conditions throughout the day).

Well, I finally got cranky with it and started googling. Found flashblock:
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

This replaces flash with a nice friendly button to allow one to download and
start the flash _if required_. Since installing this gem I have found it far
more "popular" to me than any amount of flash advertising on a page. If I
really really need to look at the flash, and it is obviously "content", I
still easily can.

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 18 Aug 2007 01:00:06
GMT rf scribed:

Consider http://www.perisherblue.com.au/winter/snowreport/index.php ,
where I live for parts of the winter. The, to me, totally intrusive
flash of a bloody flying flag advertising a motorway, of all things,
almost prevents me from reading the content of this page. It's the 'is
that a tiger in the trees?' subconscious compulsion. If it moves it
_must_ be looked at.

Even worse is
http://www.perisherblue.com.au/winter/snowreport/v_eight.php , a
picture I like to sort of use as wallpaper on a spare screen (the page
refreshes every 30 minutes, I can see the conditions throughout the
day).

Well, I finally got cranky with it and started googling. Found
flashblock: http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

This replaces flash with a nice friendly button to allow one to
download and start the flash _if required_. Since installing this gem
I have found it far more "popular" to me than any amount of flash
advertising on a page. If I really really need to look at the flash,
and it is obviously "content", I still easily can.

Sounds like a great plugin; I will have to look into that.

The nucleus of your story is not only what's wrong with Flash, but several
other things as well, including stuff like Active-X. It boils down to lack
of user-control. I don't want anything on my computer that I can't control
(-yes, one has to put up with some things), and the morons and a-holes who
design these "flashy"-type sites and "hidden" systems seem totally
incapable of grasping the concept that this is the prevailing attitude.

 

[dorayme]

and the morons and a-holes who
design these "flashy"-type sites and "hidden" systems seem totally
incapable of grasping the concept that this is the prevailing attitude.

Strong words, Boji. I thought you were almost going to say
schmucks...

Now what was that plugin that my browser (Safari) did not wait to
tell me I had to get if I was not going to "miss out on some of
the content" on your own website?

 

[Sherm Pendley]

Well, I finally got cranky with it and started googling. Found flashblock:
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

This replaces flash with a nice friendly button to allow one to download and
start the flash _if required_. Since installing this gem I have found it far
more "popular" to me than any amount of flash advertising on a page. If I
really really need to look at the flash, and it is obviously "content", I
still easily can.

Very useful little extension - thanks for the tip!

sherm--

 

[Neredbojias]

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Sat, 18 Aug 2007 03:30:51 GMT
dorayme scribed:

Strong words, Boji. I thought you were almost going to say
schmucks...

Now what was that plugin that my browser (Safari) did not wait to
tell me I had to get if I was not going to "miss out on some of
the content" on your own website?

I don't really know if it applies to Safari, but there is an MS plugin for
Firefox (-I think it also works for SeaMonkey and possibly Opera) that
allows functioning of an embedded Windows Media Player. I got mine from
Microsoft via the www.mozilla.com plugins page.

This, however, on my page at least, probably wouldn't be worth it just to
see a hi-speed-designed movie trailer if you don't have hi-speed.

 

[Travis Newbury]

The nucleus of your story is not only what's wrong with Flash, but several
other things as well, including stuff like Active-X. It boils down to lack
of user-control. I don't want anything on my computer that I can't control
(-yes, one has to put up with some things), and the morons and a-holes who
design these "flashy"-type sites and "hidden" systems seem totally
incapable of grasping the concept that this is the prevailing attitude.

Or we grasp it, but we just don't care because we found that losing
people with a thought process like yours (not saying it is wrong) have
fewer consequences than losing the business of people they are
designing the site for.

Bottom line it is all a numbers game. What works best for one site,
may not work at all for another.

 

[rf]

Or we grasp it, but we just don't care because we found that losing
people with a thought process like yours (not saying it is wrong) have
fewer consequences than losing the business of people they are
designing the site for.

I am well aware that you are totally pro-flash and I agree to a certain
extent, flash has its place. It's nice when well done. But not in a bloody
advertisement for a motorway, on a ski site FFS :-(

Did you look at the site I posted about? A really really non-event. Not even
good flash. And repeating. Forever. Do you really think that you might
_gain_ viewers if you put something like this on your page? Why do you think
I found a hammer with which to squash it? Reminds me of that bloody monkey
with the big hammer that was around a few years ago. Where is that thing
now?

Bottom line it is all a numbers game. What works best for one site,
may not work at all for another.

This aforementioned advertisement IMHO would not work for *any* site. I
agree with Neredbojias (to a certain extent). I want control over my
computer, in that I want to choose to not display such abhorrant
advertisements. If the rest of the sometimes good flash goes with it then so
be it.

Meta tags used to be good for placement in the search engines. Abused.
Ignored.

Popups used to be good for the occasional help screen or whatever. Abused.
Ignored.

Is this to be the way for flash?