The last five years has seen an exponential
growth in the use of shockwave and flash
animations in creating websites. The old
tried and trusted techniques such as D/HTML
are slowy moving over to make room for this
newer multimedia delivery vehicle. Scripting,
such as Javascript, is viewed with disdain
by some and ignored by others. Yet the people
who advocate the use of flash/shockwave
in creating multimedia-rich sites are not
asking the right question: Is all that glitters
gold?
An important facet of flash / shockwave
glossed over by most people is that these
technologies are a packaged scripting environment:
In other words - most of what you can do
in flash, you can do in DHTMl with a liitle
effort. A question that pops up at this
stage is: Why would I want to go through
all of that? The answer is simple and is
illustrated by way of practical example.
Pick a topic - any topic - and type the
relevant seach keywords into your favorite
search engine. Now try to find a flash site
under the first thirty results. You will
be surprised to find that this 'silver bullet'
of web design does not even feature. The
majority of search engines do not support
the indexing of shockwave / flash sites
- this can have a detrimental effect on
your Internet business if you rely on search
engine traffic to generate revenue. Remember
one thing: Content is king and the only
recognised content is in HTML pages.
Bells & Whistles: Where, When and What
Deploying rich multimedia sites are becoming
more and more a design requirement. However,
the objective of your site should be the
determining factor between using D/HTML
or Flash for multimedia content. Exposure
and the generation of revenue solidly discounts
the use of Flash as the major site component
- search placement is too important to sacrifice
for a simple thing such shiny buttons. D/HTML
provides an attractive alternative to ensuring
that your site is indexed properly by search
engines.
However, Flash should not be put out to
pasture based on this: Limited Flash content
can still be an asset on your Internet presence
if used judisciously. Corporate Intranets
are another matter entirely: Flash provides
the perfect delivery vehicle for rich business
applications, where DHTML would be more
of a liability than an asset - e.g. training
material, presentations and etcetera.
In conclusion, the objective of a site
should determine which of the two technologies
are the preferred medium for mutimedia delivery.
About the Author
Riaan Pieterse is the CEO and founder of
Kerberos Internet Services CC, South Africa.
Having spent a number of years conducting
various consulting assignments in the Far
East, Middle East, Africa and Europe to
businesses and governments alike, Riaan
has a solid understanding of the business
and technology issues in today's market.
For more information visit http://www.kerberosdev.net
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