peter nitsch.net

Flash 9 player has been around for over a year now. Lots of us have been toying with it since release and discovered what a giant leap forward the player, and particularly AVM2 are. But for some of us working in interactive advertising, there’s still client resistance to adoption.

It’s a frustrating situation, and one that many of us have become accustomed to. The same problem existed with the jump from Flash 5 to 6, and then from Flash 7 to 8. Here we are again it seems. Shackled by AS-Past when all we can think about is AS-Future.

Often, the client formula seems to be:
Latest version of Flash = Last version of Flash + "Bells & Whistles" - Audience

Since advertising is all about brand reach (and therefore the widest possible audience), clients are content with waiting till player penetration figures are close to the last versions’. In the past, this formula actually made sense. Sure, Flash 8 was a large leap forward, but what most clients saw was the addition of filters, text rendering, and video improvements. Were these enough for early adoption? Most often, the answer was “no”. Flash 9 is a different animal, and clients need to understand that.

So how do you convince the client to go Flash 9? I like using the question “Do you think the intended audience has ever seen a YouTube video? If so, they have Flash 9″, but most client’s need more than that, so here are the most important reasons:

Adoption. Flash 9 has seen the fastest adoption of any Flash player. Adobe has released figures that put penetration around 84% for March of this year. The speed of adoption was greatly helped by MySpace upgrading to Flash 9 in response to a security fix, and YouTube upgrading to Flash 9 for the fullscreen video feature. Adoption of such a rapid scale, by companies as significant as MySpace and YouTube, should act as indicators to the player’s capability.

Update: Adobe has released new penetration numbers that put Flash 9 over the 90% mark in June 2007. This officially makes Flash 9 (AS3) the preferred format for publishing Flash content.

ActionScript 3. Clients eyes usually glaze over at the mention of programming, but AS3 is a vital feature that they need to be aware of. Lots of great overviews have already been written about the language. The key features include a large speed boost, true XML support, and ECMAScript compliance. But more than that, AS3 represents a total shift to true OOP and, as a result, the emergence of incredible Open-Source projects that represent a paradigm shift in Flash programming. MIT Licensed projects like Papervision3D, Tweener, Red5, and PureMVC that when applied to advertising, produce some stunning results.

Full-screen. Full-screen mode with hardware scaling is the reason YouTube upgraded to Flash 9, and for good reason. Browser-less web and video are an experience people associate with the television medium. It’s an experience that offers less distractions for the audience, is more immersing, and thus carries the message further. The recent announcement of H.264 (HD video) support make full-screen Flash even better.