Flash banners, are they any good ?
 

Just made a site with some flash on it, (intro and some banners)
does flash work for you ?

Yes BUT needs to be done well.

don't use intros.. they suck beyond belief.. the average surfer has been conditioned to skip or leave.

Should have made it clearer in my post. I was referring to banners only - not intros. However a choice of normal or flash tour can work if the flash tour is good. A surprising number will take the flash tour. Tried it on a small AVS site once and it got good results.

... I love flash banners ... like that linkuppro banner, every time I see it I just have to click it ... dunno why ??

did i say anything about tours??? :) flash tours can rock when done well :)

heheheh so thats why my click/sale ratio is plummeting! lol j/k :thumbsup

you can say so much more in a flash banner. especially in these sig buttons.. my sig is smaller than regulation size but it tells it's story fairly well..

it's moments like these i bite my hand because my new design site isn't up yet and i can't indulge in perfectly legal spam!

they are great, but you waste ~10% of surfers who can't see it.....

"they are great, but you waste ~10% of surfers who can't see it..."

... you mean 10% of all websurfers are blind ?? about time I develope a touchsensitive site for them ...

more like 4% for version 4.. also for webmaster targetted ones the waste percentage would have to be lower than the general public given their position (as early adopters).

Flash intros are GREAT! (only if they have a Skip button)

LOL!

- Wes

also i should have mentioned, you detect and feed anyone without the plugin a GIF.. so 96% of people get an enhanced message and 4% still get a normal one. np.

Id recommend staying away from flash. remember most of your visitors are at 56K or less.

its a waste of time.

This is exactly the same argument you can use to use Flash. A 28 Kb banner can say as much as a 200 kb gif banner. Maybe more if you use little graphics.

*hits head on wall*.. jesus fucking christ when will you people learn.. FLASH IS MADE FOR PEOPLE ON 56k CONNECTIONS - IT'S SMALL AS FUCK! arrggghhhh!.. you've seen that foxcounter banner thats often above? i made one in an argument like this a week or two ago.. 3.9k... 3.9k.. some of those gifs are 30k.. it's what you're doing.. don't hold a designer's wanky bloated 800k preloader against flash.. it's misusing the tool.. flash is better for people on 56k connections because it's a streaming file format.. period. my sig is 9k.. that spacedog game i made is 13k....nah..fuck it.. it's way late.. im tired.. stay away from flash please do.. in fact if i could snap my fingers and make it so that every adult webmaster would never use flash i would.. all my shit would rake in a lot more. :).. man.. need sleep..

I just think all flash is a waste of time. Im a hardcore programmer though so im biased. I use 'vi' for html and programming :)

Though i think its just slow loading, causes browsers to crash, and really is a waste of time.

yeah well all graphics are a waste of time eh? causes things to load slowly.. it's like saying html is a waste of time and is slow because the html sites you've been to were coded by a novice and all the dreamweaver tags were left in and all the jpegs/gifs were left on compression "12" and it crashes browsers..

that can be your opinion.. but it sure aint right. :)

Can you show me some popular adult or non adult websites that base their site on flash?

If you looked at the top 25 or top 100 most visited websites adult, or non adult on the internet, id bet that few if any use flash at all.

How come?

i bet you'd be wrong..

flash banners are all over the place..

secondly. flash isn't the right tool for the function of the most popular sites..which are portals and database heavy stuff.. there are popular sites who's function flash IS the correct use for and they are great..(like postcard sites and the like) you're not talking about flash there.. you're talking about the right tool for the job.. and just like you wouldn't code google in flash because it's not the correct use of the tool even though you could if you really wanted.. using flash for banners, tours, games etc IS the correct use for flash..

your argument is flawed.

it's like talking about gasoline and pointing at a rocket and saying..gasoline sucks the rocket will crash.. you see any other of the top 25 rockets that nasa built using gasoline? with a big ass freeway roaring behind you.

I've got an intro of about 30secs well I'll let you know if it's any good, anyways thank you all for the replies

my conclusions are:

flash is good for every connection and it'll boost your sales

any comments ? are is that about it

I am not really fund of "full" flash sites..

it would be good to see before and after stats.. how many people actually make it to your site with an intro infront of it.. maybe have the skip button record the amount of times it's been pressed to an asp file and work out the percentage..

flash IS good for every connection.. and it WILL boost your sales
providing that

A. it's done correctly by someone that knows what they're doing.
B. the function it fulfills is one that is suited to flash.
C. the use of flash doesn't detract from the niche, ie. a slick flash tour for an amateur site.. (not that this is bad, just a consideration)
D. you don't just do in flash what you would in a gif or HTML..

but's it's not a magic bullet... and it's not going to increase everybody's sales.. but by the right author for the right purpose... but then thats just obvious information isn't it? :)

im not fond of full flash sites either.. i often choose the HTML version if i get the chance.. but it depends on my reasons for going to the site.. if i just want quick info.. a statistic, a quote.. news.. then no.. if it looks amatuerish.. then no.. but if the site is one that flash can enhance then im cool with them.. for instance a design site showing off what they can do in flash. Once a question it's a question of appropriate use..

Thanks for all you responses,


yo kai you back online again ? hit me up on msn and let's do
some site design

well dont try it submitting galleries the bots will boot it

i had flash banners and all i got was,

gallery denied cant use embed objects