BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: Photography Careers and Making Money

To Flash or not to Flash (ie html)

I know Flash can have some problims but so dose everything. If I go with Flash I would need to hire someone to make the site or hit a high cost for the program.

So here is the question. What would you do Flash or HTML? Also if Flash can you tell me of some good places to look where they could build me a page?

Thank you,

Kim

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July 23, 2004

John
PhotoBlast

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July 23, 2004

Editors or potential clients really do not care that much about "flash", and they want to get to the "real meat" that you are there to show them.

If you do anything much to slow them down, they will be off and away from your site fairly fast unless you have something that they just have to see!
The problems that "flash" will sometimes give a visitor could possibly lose you some business also!
You can make it unique, stylish, and professional looking without "flash".

It's something to think about, and just my opinion.

Mike

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July 23, 2004

My only real problim is that the site I am building is going to be mainly for my Portrait and wedding work so having that little extra could mean a lot.

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July 24, 2004

I use pure html on my site. (www.polygon-comics.com). The reason I use pure html is because my site is focused on allowing more people to see my site.

Cons of Flash:
- certain browsers with the flash plugin can see it. others can't.
- visitors with flash disabled won't see anything on your site.
- flash is hard on a slower computer.
- flash will take more bandwidth and so take longer to load.
- flash is harder to update, content-wise.
- unless designed properly, flash information isn't copy'able off the page. So if you contact info is there, it has to be manually typed by the visitor.
- flash isn't indexable by search engines.

Flash is basically frills/bells/whistles designed by folks who wanted those things on their site. Alot of companies do it because it looks cool, but nothing looks sadder than going to a page and seeing the broken plugin icon.

Your site is essentially a gallery, so a straightforward layout where visitors can get to your images and to your contact information is more important than fancy animations.

Is your site up right now? Would be interested in seeing how it looks now and how it will look in the future!

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July 25, 2004

My site is not up yet. I want to get everything up and running as best as I can first. Then I'll put it up and see what people think and make what changes I need to from there.

I also might be spending some time in a national park and so I will not have internet axcess fora while if I do. I would like to finalise things before I go or more likly once I get back.

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July 25, 2004

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July 25, 2004