Adobe Flash is gonna’ hit Smartphones before you know it, they announced their support for Blackberry, Android, WebOS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian systems among the others.
I’ve been using an Android phone for nearly a month now and I do have the beta version of the Adobe Flash 10 player on it. Yes, it’s Flashy and it’s seamles.
Online Ads & Microsites go Mobile
With such a multimedia capable player going mobile there’s no more divide between Computer n’ Handheld devices in terms of reach and accessibility by advertisers. Having that said, many iPhone/Android applications that were made around limitation of having no Flash support to gather data from Flash based websites will deminish for good.
So what happens next? Now the whole tranformation of Desktop browser Ads to Mobile browser Ads starts. It won’t be anymore about showing the right content to Mobile users but showing Mobile Ads to Mobile users. And this transition will take place FAST! This change in Ad format or utility will be fast for two important reasons:
The same authorware, serving, and reporting systems that are used for normal web banners and matrixes could utilize n’ serve Mobile Ads
Unlike the Mobile Web(sites), Mobi, or em-dot Mobile Flash Ads won’t be a luxury add-on to your website to make it Accessible on Mobiles but in addition accelerating sites Ad-Space-Burnup; Selling more Ads. Thus, it will be a priority
So whoever said Mobile Ads will be slow, and that year would come sometime but we never know “when”. It’s Now!.
Microsite debates have always been going on and never stopped. Be it between Designers and Developers or Media Planners and Clients or even the poor web-masters in the background.
John W Eliss, a seasoned online ads consultant, denies the need for microsites, he adds:
The Microsite, at least the original definition, is dead. Creating multiple, smaller websites for segments of the same brand only confused the customer and extended the purchasing process.
John continues the debate and adds a little +ve points too:
An advantage of microsite was search engine dominance. By creating multiple sites, a brand was able to dominate natural search rankings. No matter where the customer clicked, it was still the same company
There have been two types of microsites as of my observations, those that melt within a big site contents, and those that stand alone.
Excluding John, online marketers and for this case even the folks at online agencies would prefer to go with standalone microsites, because they’d want to have a clear shot, they often don’t want to mingle with existing websites and their Information Architecture & interactivity.
Clients on the other side don’t like to have their base website or corporate brand website touched by every campaign or product launch given that every campaign/project would have a different winner(agencies), think about conflict in style & message.
On the contrary, bigger picture believers, and those who give power to online agencies or perhaps have a big online department do go with microsites within their websites, name changes there, it becomes a section or a product page instead!
Good examples of inner microsites are the beloved Sony Ericsson and Nokia websites.
That’s right, I’m with John, Microsites are dead, but when it comes to cars? Bigger projects/products that are not daily consumer accessory, information that should not be confused with other information?
Every movie gets its own microsite, so? Should we put every Sony Pictures movie in one huge website that includes all the Sony movies?
I take my word back, it ain’t dead. It’s a relative thought, depends on three ends:
Advertisers’ website & decisions
Online Agencies or In House Department involvement
Type of Product and Advertisers’ business & consumer habits injected over years of feeding.
Microsites featured here are usually the hot ones, the ones that make you like the cars for it, but Honda gets it really wrong with a lower than average microsite for Honda Legend ‘07.
2008 is going be the year Honda Legend hits back in the UAE market after being discontinued for more than five years. So it is going to be an important year for the Legend, such a car.
As for the website, nothing new at all in terms of interaction or anything creative at all. Seems like it’s been a while most of the car microsites come in black and shades of gray and implement the same navigation actions and presentation styles. Boring.
No Music? Unpleasant hover sounds. Intro video is really low-res. Lower than average work.
One of the best Microsites ever made for the Middle East region. Elegant, Clean, and Bright. Smart flat IA, plenty of white space, big type, neat type setting, and cool content placement. All that in a non-flash microsite. It’s the AurionV6 microsite for the Middle East.
Since this Toyota class is made and assembled in Australia, here’s the Australian AurionV6 microsite. The Australian version is highly interactive, compared to the ME version, ME version is less informative but “better” informing.
Car microsites are usually the best microsites but when it comes to Jeep, it’s always been the opposite. Jeep Compass, once again gets it wrong with their online strategy. First on MSN ads, and now on their microsite. In short, poor creative that is completely based on TVCs and has no online interactivity.
Here’s the TVC, It’s neat, new and fresh.
I still don’t understand why they keep on getting it wrong online!
It’s in Flash but yet has nothing to do with Flash’s capabilities
As if they didn’t employ Flash at all. Zero level of interactivity and engagement. Poor typography, really poor! And the mascot, it’s displayed as if it was an executive’s request to be there or just a pure poor creative decision.
The shortest version of the story is this: Jeep Compass’s microsite is an after after thought work, “hey we need a microsite, here are some pics and the print creative CD is here, get it online by midnight”, that’d be a matching story board.
As you know long ago we had the Intro concepts and every business would ask you to animate an intro for their website first hand and then think about their website, that was long ago. Occasionally I find Intros here and there, some on Microsites and some on business websites. I’d understand a cool animation before launching microsites, but before opening a business website?
An extra click, obviously!
You dial a web address and get presented an animation with a “Skip Intro” button. Two scenarios, one: you have to wait for the movie to load and wait till it ends so that you can go to the website, two: you click on “Skip Intro”.
What is a business website? Isn’t it to introduce itself and its products/services? Now, with an intro you actually are trying to Intro Intro the site, no that wasn’t a typo! Introducing a business with a website that by itself is introduced by an intro at first. What a waste!
Intros in Microsites
Since microsites are actually interactive and mostly animated, there’s no need for intros, it’s a norm that you’re going to introduce a product/service or something so a Microsite is all about introducing and interacting, so is there a need to call for an intro or a skip intro button? IMHO, no!
The microsite comes in two main sections. The “Feel” section that gives you a live view of A5 on road showing off the beauty from all the angles and the “See” section that lets you really see A5 as if you were in an Audi showroom.
Imagery is off the hook, great photography and design, in short, no dust on it. It’s gray, quartz gray, just like every other luxury car microsite, shows class in simplicity while screaming quality and luxury.
There are micro-sites and micro-sites. No one ever said that if it’s flash then all your Navigation are supposed to be all weired and unpredictable? That’s right. Check out Spalding’s micro-sites. With the new NBA ball on the grips, check out why Spalding has to be #1 in basketball. You play ball? Then you know how Spalding to ballers is like how Mac is to designers. A piece of quality.
There isn’t much of interactivity that would tickle your senses but more of realism that make you feel you’re visiting a gear-shop. Just as if you were touching and feeling the basketballs. That good.
Need help buying the right ball? Answer the questioner and you’re guided to the best fitting ball.
Long story short, it’s the amount of static-interactivity and the care for brand that shows in the micro-site that pushes such a great brand forward. It’s about connecting with the brand, and the baller. Such a work.
A 1024 pixels wide microsite. It’s huge. It’s wide. It’s clean. It’s clear. The long awaited Camry is out. And it’s out in the middle east.
This beast gets the message across clearly with clear typography and smart title and page divisions. However, it shows that it was designed by a non-Arabic speaker and the Arabization process was only translation. Although the type is clear it does not match the interface and it’s dynamism. This type of metallic platfrom works better with fonts that are curvier or straighter, and not the default/formal Arabic font.
A designer might be harsh on this microsite but a marketer would be happy with it. Indeed, it brings in results. Users can actually find information they seek. It’s usable! I love it.
What is WWW’s interactivity without Adobe’s Flash? How would the web be without Flash? Simply, the web would be incomplete without Flash. What’s a microsite without Flash? How about a microsite made for Flash? “It’s the 10th anniversary!”:http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/special/flashanniversary/ Flash’s Flashback.
I still remember designIsDead
It was those days when Flash was just a buzzword to look cool when talking about web. Usually refered to as Macromedia instead of Flash, how funny, oh man. I got to know Flash on it’s 3rd version when I could finally get a pirated version on CD. Flash 4 came out and Flash was never the same again. The whole Macromedia Director crowd moved to Macromedia’s Flash. It was back then when Design Is Dead studio started their experiments on moving cinematic effects to the web. Soon after that it was Eric Jordan’s mini 2Advanced website, remember that? it was just a personal web-portfolio which now is one of the biggest online agencies in the world. Fantasy Interfaces Oh my.
It was Flash 5 when OO design came into live with SmartClips that could be taken as objects on the stage. Flash 5 came with a wholly new interface allowing for more flexibility. It was then when Macromedia started paying attention to the community that was building around Flash so gave us Macromedia Exchange.
Come Flash 6, the MX and the Component power with a strong Action Script 2.0 and a huge number of components and features built in the language. Flash was no more for animations and interactivity alone, it became an interface for app-builders.
And now with Flash 8, all the photoshop effects that you dreamed of having in Flash are all there for you. Remember cutting and transparenting images in Fireworks and Illustrator and then exporting to Flash? How painful that was. And now? Never again. Flash is acompanied with technologies like Flex and Action Script 3.0 to give you the power to do all the things you want. God bless Adobe. Happy Flashing.
