So tell me again why it’s called “Flash”

I realize that Flash plays a role on the web, especially on "artsy" sites where the visitor will tolerate all sorts of things like confusing navigation or links that have to be discovered. I've spent many hours on sites like Tetsoo and I'm simply amazed at the skill of some of the Flash developers out there. The technology lends itself very well to movie sites too.

But more and more I'm convinced that Flash is merely for entertainment purposes and should not be used for the construction of a website. I'm basing this on my conclusion that the name "Flash" is somewhat a misnomer (for the sake of time, I'm not even going to play the web standards card). One of the greatest superheroes, The Flash, got his name because of his ability to move with incredible speed. So why is it that when I'm browsing through Flash-based sites that I find myself waiting second after incredibly long second for all the cute little visual effects to load, do their thing, get out of the way, and display the content that I'm looking for. If The Flash had a website I don't think he'd find that acceptable. He'd deliver the content in, well, a flash. I wonder though if USB would be able to deliver his keystrokes quickly enough to the computer... Maybe he'd have to have a Firewire 2 keyboard created just for him... Maybe several since he'd probably wear 'em out faster than us "slow" folks.

I heard about Il Divo today and thought I'd learn a little more from their site. Well I suppose one might be able to learn something about these up-and-comers, given one has the patience to sit through every time a box blinks into being and slowly expands itself to display content that fades in, and every link to be slowly written out. Personally I'd rather watch Jell-O set.

It's a shame because it's an otherwise very elegantly designed site. I doubt they want their visitors to go away thinking they couldn't afford to purchase a speedier site. "Flash" it certainly doesn't.

With the news that Macromedia is readying a new version of Flash, I have to wonder where this technology is really headed. They've tried to pitch it as an application development environment, but I don't see that going much farther. I tried my best to develop an app using Flash Pro, and after hours of fruitless debugging I had to ask myself why I was trying so hard. There were little to no advantages of using Flash over my favorite server-side scripting language, and I found a lot of disadvantages. Lately, they're touting Flash's ability to deliver video, which is one of its greatest uses. I'm getting the picture that Flash is one incredibly confused tool.

Is Flash a tool for purveyors of interactive entertainment? (And what the heck is Shockwave for anyway?) Or is it the latest and greatest video plug-in?

Whatever it is, let's all decide right now that it's not a magical website builder. Want to put some flash into your site? Use CSS instead. Your audience will thank you for it when the content appears immediately instead of having to grow a container first.