TAKE MY FLASH WEBSITE... PLEASE

We have had some requests lately to integrate our .ASP-based "Consumer Website" - our killer real-time community/house/option/estimate engine that writes directly out of the Dynami Builder (tm) database and gives our client-builders an instant 360 view of their product data.... OK... end of sales pitch.... it's killer, check it out. --- with your Flash-based websites.

Yes it can be done. Take a look at this - pretty good basic tutorial Flash-to-ASP. http://www.smartwebby.com/Flash_and_ASP/basics.asp

As you can see- there will be extra steps and performance issues, etc. etc. But yes, we can make it work.

The real issue is your Flash-based website. When you build an entire interface and site using Flash, the ONLY human being who will benefit is your Flash consultant.

You lose
Your site visitors lose
Search engine crawlers lose (usually)
Your prospective buyers lose

Have I lost you too? What is "Flash" you're asking? Google it.
In a nutshell, Flash is a web technology, developed by Macromedia, now owned by Adobe. It is a closed, proprietary environment that allows you to create all manner of visual trickery on the web. A "rich multi-media experience" is what Flash proponents call it.

It's wonderful for displaying little bits of interactive fun, like an online video game... or a streaming movie, or even an interactive menu. But unfortunately the trend is to build the ENTIRE FRIGGING SITE in Flash, throwing caution (and all W3C Best Practices) out the window. Especially onerous are those "web authors" who really don't know what the F they're doing... they only know how to use the "Flash" authoring tools... or worse yet, one of the "Flash-alike" knockoff tools like "Swish". Somehow, these idiots convince our clients they'll have a richer, better, faster website than one that uses conventional coding/scripting techniques.

Baloney.

- I've yet to see a Flash website that was any easier to navigate, performed any better, or looked any better than scripted or static HTML site. Homebuilders are not video game designers, rock musicians, or movie producers. Those industries might benefit from the all-Flash approach... but I doubt it.

- Your users lose some very simple, but important capability when you use all-Flash. Like the ability for a reader to highlight, copy, and paste your address or phone number. Think about how many times you do that when surfing the web. Flash-generated site ? Forget it. If all they want to do is paste your phone number into their contact manager... they can't. Flash is a closed environment. You can't copy text, you can't write a hyperlink to a new tab, you can't do much of anything you can do with an HTML-generated page.

- The real killer - search engine optimization. What is the Google or Yahoo spider going to index on your all-Flash site ? Hmmmmm ? Answer - not much. Smart Flash developers have found ways around this... they insert static pages and meta data and do other tricks that can be spidered... the problem is, seems like none of these smart Flash developers have found homebuilder clients. The ones I've dealt with don't even know what I'm talking about when I mention this shortcoming. Shocking. Yeah good idea... build your client a pretty website that is essentially invisible to Google. That's serving your clients - NOT.

So friends - do yourself, your buyers, your employees and your subs who all depend on you a favor- save the Flash for little streaming movies and other minor features on your site. Pick up a copy of "Skip Intro" (Search it on Amazon) - the best treatise (so far) on how to... and how not to... use Flash on the web.

Look at the 20 most-utilized sites on the Internet: eBay, Amazon, Google, Wikipedia, CraigsList, etc... NONE of them are Flash-based. They must be doing something right.