Your website is a personal reflection of you and your business that you’ve worked hard to create; so why would you settle for a basic, plain website home page for both old and potential new customers to see? Your old customers might just get bored looking at the same old thing while potential customers might not think much at all about your site, and therefore your business. A Flash intro on your website will keep your customers coming back for more.
There are alternatives to plain, old boring websites that are written in basic HMTL. In case you’re not up on your computer terminology, HTML is a computer language used to place pictures, words, basic shapes and colors in certain positions on a page. While HTML works great for text and any pertinent information on your site, it’s become somewhat antiquated when it comes to grabbing the attention of visitors. This is where Flash and its animating characteristics come into play.
Basically, there are two types of graphics- Bitmap images and vector graphics. Any scanned, flat image is saved as a Bitmap, like photographs. Any drawing made in a computer is saved as a Vector graphic. Vectors use a series of mathematical equations to create the lines and shapes that ultimately make up a drawing. Flash is vector animation software, originally used to make cartoons for web pages. It will also load much faster than HTML because Flash “caches" the moving cartoons so they don’t need to be reloaded every time the site is accessed. It’s sort of like “cookies" stored in your computer that enable a site to load faster when visited more than once.
If you’re still a bit confused, think about this. Back in the 1970’s video games began to make their mark in the world. A large black box was hooked up to your television set (without a remote control). In order to get your system to work, you’d have to flip a switch on the back of the TV, and insert a thin, box-like rectangle into the open slot on your Atari video game system. Games such as Pitfall and Adventure were quite popular, offering graphics that were unsurpassed for the day. As technology progressed, so did the games, game systems and the companies who made them. Today, XBOX 360 and Playstation 2 offer life-like images of your favorite stars who have been lucky enough to have a video game replicating a movie or sports team that they represent. Today’s games offer state of the art graphics, just like Atari did in the 1970’s. If you compare today’s graphics with those of the 70’s and HTML to Flash, you’ll find some amazing similarities in the way they are looked upon by the masses. Don’t be laughed at: get a Flash intro to your site.
Special effects aren’t just for the movies anymore; we are in the midst of the Internet generation trying their best to outdo the computer language of their forefathers, HTML. Flash is now the standard for high-impact web content and animation to the monitors of computers around the globe. Anything less is considered to be sub-par.
There are basically two types of graphics- Bitmap images and Vector graphics. As a general rule of thumb, any scanned image is a Bitmap (like when you edit a photograph) while any drawing made in a computer is saved as a Vector graphic. These types of programs use a series of mathematic equations to create lines, shapes and ultimately drawings. Flash is Vector animation software, originally designed to create animations for use and display on web pages. This trait also makes the highly entertaining page load much faster than HTML, as Flash “caches" the movies so they don’t need to be reloaded each time the site is visited. HTML also has this “cache" feature, but the speed and quality “lifelike" animation of Flash simply makes for no competition.
HTML served its purpose of creating the traditional “front page of a newspaper" type of website, and did a fine job for the time. Bitmap images were the photos and snapshots taken by the staff photographer, and the HTML is the plain text. As computer programs and software began to evolve along the with the growth of the Internet, it soon became pretty common knowledge that HTML’s lack of excitement would become outdated.
If you’re still unsure about having a Flash intro on your website, think about this: over 90% of all computers in the world have a Flash Player installed- that’s up from 80% just 5 years ago. This means that the demand for such graphics and displays is here and increasing at every click of a mouse. Flash has basically no browser issues and can be used on any Mac or PC.
If there is a downside to Flash, it would have to be the fact that plain text doesn’t work very well with it –that’s part of the reasoning behind creating a Flash introduction to your site, leaving the pertinent text/key information to HTML. While an HTML introduction will get the attention of thousands of potential customers and clients and bring them into your site, a Flash intro will grab their attention and keep them coming back. Why? Basically, Flash is entertaining (like an X-Box) and HTML is, well, Pong.
Maxine Winters has sinced written about articles on various topics from Software, Web Development and Software. Maxine Winters recommends Flash Text Animation Builder to easily create an attractive flash intro. See for more in. Maxine Winters's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.