Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Thank you, internet games.

I still remember the first time I downloaded "Macromedia Flash player." I was in middle school, probably, and it was required to play some long-forgotten internet game.

I'm thinking about this because I am now working on my own website, and considering using several elements of flash. It is a fantastically useful and powerful tool, and is installed on more than 90% of internet-roaming computers (or traffic, not sure). But it occurs to me: How many of those flash-ready computers have it installed because the child of the family did so on an internet game site. I know nowadays, when I am prompted to install plugins (silverlight, quicktime, the dreaded wildtangent), I usually decline, and look for the same content somewhere else. If I were a visitor to my site, I would not install some unfamiliar plugin just to listen to some third-rate recordings of seventh-rate songs.

But like windows, flash will never disappear--it's too dug-in. Plus, unlike windows, it's very well-done.

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