A Flash Primer for Non-Techies

Do you know what Flash is?

It's a serious question. During the past few months, volumes and volumes have been written about Flash. It's dead.  It's dying. It's lazy, buggy and bloated. It's everywhere. It's efficient, it makes the web work. It's ubiquitous. It creates rich, engaging digital experience. It is going to drive the knowledge commerce economy. It's proprietary. It is irrelevant. In its future iterations, it's where the mobile Web is headed. Yadda-yadda-yadda.

I've been finding myself defending Flash lately.  Let me be clear - I am not being a complete and total fangrrl. here.  This is less about loving Flash and more about really despising less-than-accurate information being used to sway opinions on the scale that we've been seeing in the media-verse. Bitch-slaps from Apple, gnashing of teeth and lighting of candles over HTML5. Microsoft needling from the sidelines. It's not to say that these aren't hugely important developments, because they are. But some of the common wisdom going around these days about both is simply not accurate. And some of THIS arises from the fact that people aren't quite sure what Flash really is.

So. Seriously. Whaddya think?

Well... You don't need to be embarrassed if you don't know. It's surprising how many people, especially non-technical experts, really aren't sure what Flash is.

Here are a few hints:

• It's a free media player available on the web. You need it to view SWF files  - movies, video, animations and so on - on the Web. Except on iPhones and iPads. And that's too bad. But as you will see, this is a an important but relatively small part of the big picture. Comes in two flavors, Flash Player and AIR.
• It's a web animation scripting tool. Generally goes by the name of Flash Professional.
• It provides a way to share video on the web. The current Flash Player supports the open H.264 video spec, by the way.
• It's a vector graphics program. Ideally suited for designing content once once and reusing it many times for a variety of display screens. As long as the content is designed to be reused. If it's not, it won't work. But then it really isn't a Flash problem. That's a design problem.
• It's a file format. Most commonly known as SWF. Like PDF for web content. For example, you build your animated content as FLV or FLA,  you publish as SWF. It's locked down. People can't get inside and mess around with your files. Sometimes designers create big monster Flash files that have lots of problems. That's usually more attributable to bad design than to Flash, the scripting tool.
• It's the foundation of most non-technical authoring for rapid elearning. In other words, many rapid elearning tools produce SWF files. In fact, there are so many SWF tools that there are entire websites dedicated to sharing information about them.
• It's a published web specification. There are no restrictions on its use. Really. More on that in a minute.
• It's the foundation of the elearning industry and it is going to take a while for the industry to evolve away from Flash. Yes, innovators will continue pushing to find better and faster ways to create and share digital experience. HTLM5 will certainly drive that shift. But for now this is where a lot of the industry is going to remain as we move through hype cycles and adoption curves.

Here is the nut of the situation. In layman's terms, HTML5 is being developed as the next major revision of HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the core markup language of the World Wide Web. HTML5 is the proposed next standard for HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and DOM Level 2 HTML. It aims to reduce the need for proprietary plug-in-based rich internet application (RIA) technologies such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Apache Pivot, and Sun JavaFX. And that's great for people who want to program. But people who don't want to program are going to want tools to build HTML5 programs and apps.

(Psssssst. Remember HTML? Can you spell D-r-e-a-m-w-e-a-v-e-r ???)

Another important part of this whole discussion is that Steve Jobs hates Flash and doesn't want Flash anywhere near his universe. Which is too bad, given how much revenue gets driven for Apple with each release of Adobe design tools.

Two important points to raise in this discussion. The first is what to do about the Flash embargo on Apple mobile hardware for elearning professionals.The fact that Steve Jobs wants to keep the iPhone and iPad experience free from Flash is an Apple  business decision. I've talked to developers who are fine with this decision. And this won't present a challenge to companies with the technical acumen and business flexibility to specialize around Apple. Not all businesses, particularly elearning businesses, have that flexibility. At least not yet.

In the age of open there are many people who would rather not use proprietary tools because they don't want their money going to evil corporations. Open is free. Let me offer this alternative point of view. To paraphrase Scott McNeeley, open is free as a puppy is free. Those of us who really have to do business using the web, where writing everything from scratch is not an option, need supported, maintained software and SaaS.

As the Web has "gone mobile", and there are increasingly more that screens involved in sharing rich digital content and experience, it made sense for Adobe to think about ways to emancipate Flash. To that end, the Open Screen Project was announced May 1, 2008.  This is a project and many other industry leading companies that want to reliably deliver rich Web and video experiences live and on-demand across a variety of devices.  Adobe has open access to Adobe Flash technology, accelerating the deployment of content and rich Internet applications (RIAs), including:

• Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications.
• Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
• Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast™ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
• Removing licensing fees - making future releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

I've copied the list of current partners from the Open Screen Project website below. I know I could paste a link to that page. But then I wouldn't be reasonably sure that you had seen who is a part of this initiative:

Adobe
AMD
Antena 3
Atlantic Records
ARM
BBC
Burda Digital Systems
CELL
Chunghwa Telecom
Cisco
Comcast
Condé Nast
Daum
Disney Interactive Media Group
EPIX
FOX Mobile Group
Freescale Semiconductor
Google
HTC
Imagination Technologies

Intel
LG Electronics
Lionsgate
Marvell
MIPS Technologies
Motorola
Movial
MTV Networks
NBC Universal
Nokia
NTT DOCOMO
NVIDIA
OpenPeak
OpenTV
Palm
Paramount
PBS
Qualcomm

QNX Software Systems
Research in Motion
RTL Interactive
Sagemcom
Samsung
Sonic Solutions
Sony Ericsson
ST-Ericsson
STMicroelectronics
STERN
Symbian Foundation
Teleca
Texas Instruments
The New York Times
Tomorrow Focus Technologies
Toshiba
Verizon Wireless
Vizio
Wind River
ZiiLABS

Look. What a surprise. No Apple. And that matters. But pretty clearly Apple really isn't the only game in town.

There is no doubt that Flash will continue to evolve and change. I'm fairly certain that the HTML5 specifications will making today's plug-in tools unnecessary and that Flash as we know it today won't be around for the ages. We many never see Flash on iPads or whatever they evolve into. But knowing how long it takes for enterprise adoption of innovation to occur, I think many of us are going to  keep Flash in our toolkits for a while.

Comments

[Kevin Thorn]

Thanks Ellen for taking the time to write such an informative article. I'll be sending those in my debate circles here!

I'm certainly not the band leader when it comes to Flash, but I am a fan and I do use it weekly.

Another important thing to note is this argument is about Flash and mobile devices, not Flash as an authoring tool how its contributions have evolved.

Web, mobile, RIA's, eLearning, etc. are only a few but lest we forget that Flash is HUGE in the animation industry. Specifically, broadcast animation. Anyone notice the popular eSurance (www.esurance.com) commercial? Yep! Broadcast animation totally done in Flash! Along with other tools, Flash is also used in many of the popular animated cartoons on TV today.

In the years to come Flash may evolve away from what we know it today, but I'm hard pressed to believe it will be around in some fashion for a very long time.