Too flashy

If a site won’t open in the Apple forest, does it make a sound?

This appeared recently as a news story in the Wall Street Journal:

“As the critical holiday shopping season approaches, an ongoing software feud between Apple Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. is frustrating some U.S. retailers.

Purveyors of high-end clothing and accessories have spent extravagantly to enliven their e-commerce websites with video and animation that run on Adobe's pervasive Flash technology. Even mid-tier retailers such as Macy's have invested in Flash technology to spice up their online storefronts.

Apple, however, refuses to support Flash technology on its mobile Web browser. As a result, some of those websites don't function properly on Apple's iPhone and iPad tablet computer, interfering with retailers' sizzle…”
Some Flashy Retail Sites Come Up Short on the iPad, 10/20/10 by Rachel Dodes and Yukari Iwatani Kane

Apparently the fact that Flash doesn’t work on Apple products still is news to some, even though the Flash/Apple battle has only escalated since last spring.

Wherever one stands on the platform, the fact remains for now that if you want to build your site in Flash, you have to give up a big bite of the Apple audience. That’s a fairly huge decision to make, and it happens in the conception stage—way before you take an idea to a web designer or programmer and ask him or her to execute.

Building or redesigning a website may seem to be about text and photos and links and features, but underpinning all of that are some crucial technological choices that may make your gorgeous site impossible to find in a search; impossible to open on certain technology; or so slow to load that it annoys would-be users.

Would you develop the most clever, focus-group-approved, message-appropriate, call-to-action national TV commercial ever and try to film it using your kid’s Fisher Price video camera that won’t fully download to editing equipment?

On-page content…images…intra-site links…keywords…page titles…tagging…metadata: They should be a part of the same creative conversation from the start. Or a great idea might be a flash in the pan.