Flash is dead. Long live the internet.

When I was in high school I didn’t own a computer. I used to read the occasional Popular Mechanics magazine and would linger for a while on the articles about the internet or HTML, fascinated by this new technology that I had barely even used. I don’t know why, but for some reason I’ve always been drawn toward computers, but more specifically, computers connected to other computers. Whether it was playing a video game online or browsing through the millions of websites, I could always spend hours every day in front of a computer soaking up information and experiences, interacting with people on the other side of the world.

Soon after I bought my first computer I started building simple websites. I had all of the best animated gifs you could find, along with those awesome water ripple java applets and whatever other bells and whistles I could find. It was awesome. I wanted to push the boundaries of this new thing. To make something unique that nobody had seen before. This led me to Macromedia Flash 4. My new hobby slowly taught me how to program, and over time I got pretty good at it. Eventually I landed in New York City and found a job at a tiny little web design shop, building websites for big corporations and loving every minute of it.

During this time the internet was recovering from the big crash at the end of the 90’s and as browsers slowly evolved, so were the websites we were building. But browsers were slow to update back then, so Flash filled a need to move faster and give us more options to explore and new technology to use (and abuse!). Around this time I wrote a little javascript utility to detect the presence of the Flash plugin and conditionally inject Flash into a website or not, and I watched as it grew over the years and became one of the most used utilities on the internet.

Flash was huge. Everyone wanted a flashy website and the only way to get one that any meaningful number of people could see was to use Flash. As browsers struggled to keep up, Flash charged ahead allowing us to build some truly amazing websites. Admittedly, there was some abuse of this technology, but we still charged ahead, trying to discover and build the next generation of user interfaces. Most older companies still thought of the internet as just another medium to advertise on. They wanted a flashy website to show off to their investors and clients and cared less about building something useful. The ubiquity of the Flash plugin made it an easy choice to build these new kinds of websites. We weren’t held back by the limitations of HTML any more, and that let us all explore wild ideas and try things that wouldn’t be possible with HTML or Javascript for years to come.

But now, years later, the browsers are catching up. Mobile devices are becoming more important than desktop computers (a trend I expect to continue for years to come). As more people use the internet in their day to day lives, businesses have realized that having a useful website is more powerful than just a flashy animated advertisement.

A few months ago I noticed that SWFObject usage on the top 10,000 websites was declining for the first time ever (I believe usage peaked in the summer of 2010). Last week, Adobe announced that they would halt development of Flash player for mobile devices, and refocus their efforts on HTML. Since this news was announced, I’ve seen many sad and nostalgic tweets from friends and colleagues. Some seem to be taking the news better than others, and it’s understandable that some people are sad to see Flash go. But it’s important to remember that no single technology is responsible for this awesome thing we call the internet.

This brings us back to my younger self sitting at home in Arizona playing with Flash and Photoshop, building new things. I’ve always loved making things, and I suspect many web developers feel the same. The pleasure of making something great is what drives us, not a specific technology. So don’t be too sad about Flash evolving, or even dying. Just keep making awesome things with whatever tools you have at your disposal.

Discuss this post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3227994

Flash on the Beach, Miami (CANCELED)

UPDATE: The Miami conference has been canceled due to lack of attendees. This is very sad news, but in an economy like this it’s not really surprising. Guess we’ll just have to wait for September for our dose of Flash on the Beach.

If you are still looking for a Flash/Design conference to attend this summer, I highly recommend Flashbelt.

The best European Flash conference is heading to the states this spring. Flash on the Beach has been happening in Brighton, UK for the last few years and is such a good time, I think everyone should go.

I’ll be heading down to Miami this year to talk about YouTube type things, so if you are curious about using YouTube for a project, or just interested in hearing some stories about a very high performance Flash application, you should come to my session :).

Flash on the Beach Miami

In case you are interested, there’s tons of pictures and writing about past FotB events all over the place. So check it out, and hopefully I’ll see you there.

Powered by YouTube event this Thursday, July 10th 2008

Are you interested in the various API services that YouTube offers? Are you going to be in the bay area this Thursday? Then why not stop by Powered by YouTube?

It’s taking place at the San Bruno YouTube office this Thursday, July 10th from 10:30am to 5:30pm.

Here’s the blurb about it:

Powered By YouTube is a developer gathering focused on bringing together developers to learn more about the YouTube APIs and Tools. Spend the day at YouTube’s headquarters and learn how to bring YouTube to your website, share best practices, and get hands-on with the APIs. Meet fellow YouTube API developers across a wide range of companies, YouTube engineers and product managers, and leave inspired to enhance your user experience with the YouTube APIs.

Also: It’s free, and you get a free lunch.

Help encourage Mozilla to fix a Firefox bug

Firefox has an annoying bug you may have come across while working with Flash applications and websites: When you make a request for a file from a swf, Firefox doesn’t send a referer. I’ve set up a test page to show the problem.

If you visit this page in Firefox and click the “push me” button, you will see simply “Ref is:” but no other text. If you visit in with any other browser, you’ll see:
“Ref is: [http://dev.deconcept.com/referer_tester/]”.

The problem is that Firefox doesn’t properly append the referer header to requests made from swfs embedded on the page. Every other browser I’ve tested sends a referer.

How you can help:

Visit the bug page for this issue and “vote” for the bug. DO NOT ADD A COMMENT SAYING SOMETHING LIKE “Yes please fix this bug!”. This will only annoy the developers. Simply “voting” for the bug is enough. You vote for the bug by clicking the “vote” link on the top right side of the page, and putting a check in the box next to the bug and clicking the “Change my votes” on the subsequent page.

Speaking at Flash on the Beach

I’ve been invited back to speak at Flash on the Beach this year. I’ll be giving a talk about the YouTube player APIs and how you can use YouTube in your online projects.

Flash on the Beach is a fantastic conference in Brighton at the end of September, and it’s one of the best Flash and design conferences to check out.

Registration is now open, so if you’re looking for an excuse to head to the UK, this is it.

Also, next week is Google I/O (Flight of the Conchords are playing a show there!), which I believe still has a few tickets available, and just next month I’ll be heading off to Flashbelt in Minneapolis, so come say ‘Hi’ if you see me wandering around either of these events.