Interesting technical topics that expanded my horizons of internet marketing this week included:
1) Flash is not supported by the iPhone or any touch device
2) PHP is used instead of HTML for dynamic websites
3) Drupal can be used to allow anyone to have access to modify your website
4) the more external links you have to your website the more probable that Google’s SEO might find your webpage.
The topic of Flash has also come up in my web development class at Harper College. Flash on a website may limit the number of people who can view your site. If the user has to download an application they might move on to where they can get the information faster.
Interested in learning more, I did a search on what might replace Flash and found “The Future of Web Content – HTML5, Flash & Mobile Apps.”
One shift in the technical environment is that the number of mobile device platforms has increased. Flash covers 75% of the market share for online video but has we know the iPhone does not support it. This means that approximately 10M people cannot view flash on their iPhone. Politics, audience bias and not technical issue drive the battle between Apple, Google and Adobe. Each company has their favorites. One of the potential replacements for Flash is HTML5, which seems to align well with Google. HTML5 would allow a common video format.
Functionality of HTML5 and customer reach will depend on the browser you use. As we saw in class, the market share covered by each browser is constantly changing. However, part of the problem with removing Flash is that it is embedded in the infrastructure of many websites. It is like changing from oil to biofuels. It takes time to build a new distribution system. But ultimately it will boil to what the customer wants. The answer, in reality, may not be black and white but shades of gray.
In addition to the lecture portion of the class, I learned from one of my classmates that most companies do not make their website accessible to users with disabilities. It is an unwanted added cost of development. Perhaps this is the difference between academia and the working world. If the market share of customers with disabilities were large enough, I am sure the website would be accessible. The common theme seems to be that technology and marketing must go hand in hand, determining the target customer is important, as it determines what channels you will use to reach them. Investigating customer behavior first may heavily influence the type of technology you use.
3 comments:
Excellent points. Strictly speaking Flash is not supported on iPhones, iPoods and iPads, but is available on some touch devices (i.e. Nokia N900). However, mouse navigation does not lend itself to interaction with Flash on a touch device (if right-hand clicks and roll-overs are required).
I would highly suggest adding a suitable image to future posts.
Well done.
Thanks. I will work on the image for next time.
And I can see you have.... Thank you.
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