Quote:
Originally posted by Lightning
This is a very interresting topic. I would like to hear more about the pros and cons of flash for banners, sites or any other uses?
|
flash on banners isn't a problem at all, in fact even though it's not the most fun use of flash, i've got to say that it's close to the best possible use of flash.. incredibly small file size, engaging graphics, far more capable of conveying ideas than gifs.. the perfect visual ad medium..
flash pieces and compartments are another great use of flash.. basically half page ads on your site.. brilliant.
the advantage of both of those uses is you can display a flat graphic if the user doesn't have flash and they don't get turned off with a "loading please wait" message. So 90-odd % of your surfers get an enhanced message, and the other 5 -10% get a normal ad... it's pretty much win-win..
the only downside of flash as an ad, is that it's not as easy to track clicks for referrals as with a gif where anyone can download it and ad their own referral ID on the end.. so it takes a little more effort to get that happening.. to get flash to read in variables, or use a commercial tracking system for it.
but it's also good for when you do your own ads for your own sites or for a sponsor who you think you can sell better with your own ads and people can't steal your galleries/sites/ads and change the referrer if you hard code it into the swf.
full flash sites on the other hand do have issues for surfers that don't like flash.. this is mainly because of having been annoyed by bad flash in the past than any intrinsic "badness" of flash.. flash can be made smaller and is more suited to the net given it's streaming capabilities than html.. but people took this to extremes and started going nuts making huge flash sites.. now, even when the flash site is small.. far smaller than your usual html page we have been conditioned to think that it is going to take ages to download..
you HAVE to offer a flat version of a full flash site, and I recommend using full flash sites for either real broadband use - ie a .tv movie site, or when you know the site will be small.. under 100k at least anyways.
but you can detect how fast people's connections are and deliver "cut down" versions on the fly to those on slow connections.. im considering doing a showcase site for the GFY designer showdown that will show this.. but we'll see how much time i have..