Posted on July 10, 2008 by David

Let’s begin with a short introduction!

Hello there, I’m David Brown, a close personal friend of the Freelance Web Designer herself. I manage this blog and that blog and I have a little bit of an obsession with Flash.

Flash seems to be a swear word amongst SEO fanatics. It’s nothing but a showy, unnecessary burden on ones bandwidth. It makes your google rankings cry. But I’m here to share with you some times when it’s a good idea to use Flash for your web designery needs!

Video and Audio: Nothing beats flash when it comes to streaming audio and video online. It’s a massively versatile tool being compatible with xml, php, mySQL and Skynet. (Okay, maybe not the last one.)

Dynamic Image Galleries: You can keep your php-based galleries, thanks – When it comes to searching through images in style, Flash is numero uno. With ipod-esque smooth scrolling menus freely available now, it adds a bit more impact to your portfolio than waiting for page after page to load. Plus! It’s a bit harder than right click>save as to get the high quality image for those security-conscious paranoid content protector types!

Band Websites: Something I have a lot of experience with, as a general rule band websites will stand out in the search engines for their name anyway (So long as they’re not called “The Paris Hiltons” or something) so SEO isn’t a priority; but showing off is. And Flash is so good at showing off. A quick xml linked gallery here, a dynamic blog there and you have something that the fans can explore with a bit more fascination than a regular ol’ piece of html.

Banners: When you are able, an inventive interactive flash banner will bring BILLIONS(ish) more traffic to your site than a looping gif or png (I hear they are animated now?) I’m not referring to those myspace “Do a million push ups and win an iphone” things, which Satan must be regretting spawning by now, but with a bit of thought and actionscripting skill you can make even something as simple as a banner draw someone in and pique their interest.

Website headers: A showy header (that doesn’t take an age to load) can make someone think that yours is no ordinary site; this dude has style!

And so ends my short foray into Guest Posting for now. I hope something here inspires you to think again if you have misjudged Flash in the past – to think that maybe it isn’t such a bad word after all.

Where do you think Flash is most useful? Or do you think it should be kicked off the interweb? Share your thoughts with us in a comment below!