Web Design & Marketing Blog

Is A Flash Website The Way To Go?

Category: Blog

Written by Estevan Montoya

It was 10 years ago. I just "got in to" design. Learning Visual Basic and C++ were the things to do if you were gonna be a designer. Then a little company took things by storm...Macromedia. They came up with a way to bring visually stimulating animations to the web without killing your internet connect. I remember that everyone wanted a flash site. They were cool and the way to go if you were gonna have the best website online. I remember I dreamed of making sites like 2Advanced, they were "web heroes". They still are one of the most inspirational groups out there.

Fast forward 10 years. Here we are in 2011....almost 2012. Flash has been bought by Adobe, as well as all the Macromedia suites. Flash is still around. You can still find websites that are entirely made with Flash. You can still find web animations and cartoon series made with flash. It is still alive and well. We get requests for Flash Site quite a bit. But is there really an advantage to Flash based websites? Let's look at the pro's and con's of a flash based website.

Is A Flash Website The Way To Go?

PRO 1: Clean Animations

When it comes to bringing animated movies online, Flash takes the cake. I have seen people create entire cartoon series with Flash animations. When I was a teen aged boy, I was really into Anime. There was a group of people that created a web series with a little ninja. I couldn't wait to get their email telling me a new episode was online. That makes me think of how much power an animation can have with Flash. Now in days, nearly every video out there goes through places like YouTube & Vimeo. They convert your video file into a Flash file. That is what you view when you click play. That shows how much the web is has been impacted by Flash.

PRO 2: Scripting & Database Integration

Though people think of Flash as just simple animations, it can actually get pretty complex. Most people do not know, but Flash has its own scripting language called "Action Script". This script can work with server side software and call into play things lake SQL databases. This means that not only can a website look cool, but it can be powerful. One can have an entire program made in flash because of it's ability to script and display database information.

PRO 3: The Sky Is The Limit

Bottom line, Flash websites are only limited to the programmer behind it. I am continually amazed at what people come up with in flash. From movies, to games, to full blown websites with extremely complexities, Flash has been able to pull it off. I have come to the conclusion that I should not be surprised when a Flash based website "surprises" me. I have seen movies made with Flash. I have seen business meetings conducted with a Flash based software. I have seen live video chats with Flash. I have seen webinars that are Flash based. There is a lot in the internet world that uses Flash. I have seen people use it to build an online business. Given the right idea, the right platform, and the right person, and Flash can be a thing of beauty.

All that being said, Flash based websites can be really cool. I have seen some amazing things accomplished with Flash. They are what really took me out of the Visual Basic world and brought me into the web design world. Given a propert place, Flash can integrated into a website a take a level above the other businesses and websites.