From its humble beginnings as FutureSplash, Flash has grown into the leading platform for delivery of multimedia on the web. Adobe have posted a selection of interviews with industry figures, each of whom discusses how they discovered the technology, and how they’re using it today.
The first version of Flash I encountered was the trial download of release 2 whilst working for Games Domain back in 1997. The animation capabilities of Flash instantly endeared me to the software, and I tried hard to convince my employer at the time to use it for online advertising. (Remember, this was during the dark days of gif-only advertising, when you were expected to create a compelling, uber-clickable banner in 10kb or less). Unsurprisingly, my Flash evangelism fell on deaf ears due to the low penetration rate of the plugin at the time, but within a couple of years things were very different indeed…
The internet has changed beyond recognition over the past decade, and Flash has consistently evolved and adapted to maintain its position as the most popular delivery platform for online multimedia. Greater challenges lie ahead with the proliferation of broadband, mobile/cellphone and other emerging technologies: hopefully Flash will continue to thrive in the post-Macromedia era.
