I’m just about over Flash forever. I once heard flash refered to as it as the “flashy gold chain of the internet.” I tend to agree – especially when it’s used for a site intro. But I am guilty of using it on sites in the past, some of which I would still defend.

I do have some caveats to my being over Flash statement. Flash video and banners are effective uses of media that’s not meant to be search able. It’s, served paid media after all. So if you’re browsing with a mobile browser, you shouldn’t be served it anyway. Also, some specific sites and applications inside a site that do not need to be searched and are not intended to be dynamic content are fine as long as it’s properly tagged and you have some other content to drive your SEO. But you just better be ready to live with the Flash content for awhile.

So where does this loathing of Flash come from?

Search engines still hate it.

It’s a pain in the ass to make changes.

It takes more time to execute most things in Flash which can be a real drag on making deadlines.

The biggest reason though is incompatibility with mobile. And mobile is more important than ever.

Some accounts have 1/3 of all internet usage on mobile devices. And mobile web usage is supposed to double in the next three years. So why the hell would you build a site that doesn’t work on mobile? Of course, you could just build two sites and have one served to mobile browsers. But why not just build one great site?

Posted on: December 11, 2009, by : Jimmy Gilmore