Facebook Adds Flash… Am I Excited?
Posted by Anthony LaFauce on February 22nd, 2008 9:58 AM
With the usual fever that Facebook causes news of its flash application, via Facebook Pages, is all the buzz on the blogs and tech journals the past couple of days. Most of the blogs are preaching the praise of this move and I have to agree, for the most part.
Facebook has agreed to allow business and band to use and embed flash applications into their profile pages. Allowing business and services to create dynamic web pages is a good move. Typically bands, business, and professionals create well thought out interesting pages.
How long until this migrates to the rest of the Facebook world? We all remember a little website called Myspace right? I have a Myspace page, I think it is still there, but I never visit it because any page I try to look at on Myspace is littered with flash applications that take 2 weeks to open.
Do you remember what it is like to open someones Myspace page? Songs, videos, slide shows and a million other applications open on my laptop in one fail swoop. Again, I am excited Facebook will be allowing certain pages to include flash. My fear, and it probably will happen, is that my Facebook friends accounts will become an barrage of flash applications that cause me never to open them again.
Facebook has a habit of making some pretty good moves. Its business development department is in great hands but please let me be wrong on this. Don’t let Facebook pages fall into the realm of Hamster Dance and Flying Toasters. Is anyone else frightened about flash slowly making its way into Facebook? Let me know.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:26 am
Anthony,
The flash has been around for a while. you had to add the flash player app to your page. It still is click-to-play though, no auto-loading flash.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 am
Did Facebook just put out a press release about the Flash and FBML apps, because another FB blog reported on these “new” apps yesterday?
Anyway, to the topic of the post, I think being able to add flash to Pages is great. More customization, variety of content, you can even use a Flash or FBML app in place of the profile pic on a Page. Right now individuals can’t put these apps on their Profiles, thus eliminating the possbility of FB becoming MySpace 2. With them limited to Pages I think we can trust companies/bands/artists/politicians to use it tastefully, otherwise they reduce the value of their FB presence.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
Anthony,
Flash has been around for a while as noted above. What’s interesting here is the fact that FB began a marketing push of Pages the past couple days…something I found the blogs didn’t pick up.
Take a look:
http://www.digitalperspectiveblog.com/2008/02/21/behind-the-cover-facebook-adds-pages-marketing-material/
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
[…] Facebook is enabling Flash to be used on profile pages, according to a report on All Facebook. What’s that all about? There seems to be a general fear that the introduction of Flash will […]
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’m a Facebook Flash dev myself and I for one hope that user profiles never have flash automatically loaded. I think it’s fine for the company “pages” where they will more likely (hopefully) pay attention to the user experience but most users (and not to mention developers) don’t and won’t and we’ll end up with another ugly MySpace mess. It was a good decision to keep it off when they made it and it’s still a good decision.
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Flash does not imply a dynamic website, it implys a broken usability model delivered over HTTP.
Dynamic suggests that the site would interact in some meaningful way with users — not simply change color when presented with a MouseOver event. Dynamic is achieved through server-side interactions that add value, not by enabling blinking widgits.
Worst of all, suggesting that a flash can be used to create “well thought out interesting pages” misses the point of the Web. The Web is a collection of linked Hypertext documents that make use of a phenomenaly successful and effective usability tool: the hyperlink. Flash destroys this by attempting to corral the user into a movie-like linear and enclosed world rather than operating within the expected rules of the browser.
Don’t get me wrong; Flash can be a useful tool or element on the web — though I prefer not to be tied to a single vendor for my browsing tools and non-Adobe Flash is essentially unusable. But Flash should only ever be an element of a page, similar to an image or an embedded movie. Flash should never be essential to the viewing of a site and should certainly never be used to create an entire web page.
Please stop suggesting that there is an appropriate use of Flash web pages.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I somehow suspect that autoload will come. And how are businesses defined ? On MySpace, everyone seems to be selling something. How long before large numbers of users complain that they’re excluded from putting these apps. on their profiles - same rules for all?
The crux about Flash is that it’s great, but only when tastefully used & in a limited way. Flash everywhere is a big put-off.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Any web-based technology implemented with thought and experience is well delivered. Flash provides a well entwined method to distribute amazing visuals, integrated server-side benefits and compelling user experiences.
Auto-loading any content should be the choice of the end-user, consumer and well thought out by the developers providing the infrastructure by which Flash & Facebook will integrate and deliver additional rich content to Facebook users.
All businesses want their consumers to experience compelling user-experiences. In this case Flash implemented with thought and experience will do this and Anthony LaFauce, it will not end up in the realm of dancing hamsters and flying toasters.
The auto click will arrive, but with hast Maggy. An intuitive thought sends “Flashes” of user preference by default to halt the auto load, otherwise where used with Facebook Pages. Isn’t this already happening? Or are we all falling short envisioning Facebooks subtle enhancements and handling of web-technological biases.
Micahael White, I think that Flash does not enclose the user into a little dead-end world (to be frank) I feel that there is no reason why any links within a page can not be integrated into a Flash application. Look at it like this, if you are travelling along a highway and stop at a Flashy garage to refuel; restock, be informed, entertained, overwhelmed and enlightened. Well - you’re in your own little world, well at least until you get back onto the highway. It’s not a moment of, I only want - and don’t want this - or that.
That is a little biased, and with Facebooks new and improved use of autoloading regarding Flash, that garage is open if you want it to be, when you want it to be, and where you want it to be.
March 21st, 2008 at 12:22 pm
This will most likely leak to the rest of Facebook. The student populace of Facebook has already become a mass of fancy little windows and applications that, for the most part, are of little use or have any practicality. I can open a friend’s site right now, and scroll for a good thirty seconds before I find the communication tool. I have the good fortune of discovering what quizzes she took, the little pictures she finds humorous or meaningful, at least four different music players, and more crap to come as I scroll up and down - up and down trying simply to find the communication tool carefully hidden within the rest of the Vegas-like site.
I would prefer the flash actually. At least then there could be some more interesting applications. I would imagine that there would be a flood of incredibly useless and annoying ones as well, but like I stated above, that seems to be the current case anyways. Bring it on!