Engage your users properly
When communicating to your audience with true engagement and marketing methods, the least reasonable is to try faux-interactivity by using web flash presenters and automatically jamming your message down the throat of a potential marketing target.
Further to my article on destroying your reputation with flash and web presenters I would like to reiterate that autoplay flash video—especially web presenters—are the devil.
It was suggested that I ‘condemn the use of video presenters’ who apparently ‘encorouge [sic] interactivity [and] engage people on a much more personal level than a bunch of simple SEO’d text links or a W3C compliant paragraph of text could ever do’.
What I actually condemn is the abuse of flash on a website that forces a user to experience a video in any format, be it that of a flash presenter, automatic playing video such as on Sydney Morning Herald, Warner Music or any other website. To truly encourage and understand interactivity we need to first look at it’s definition:
In computer science interactive is the adjective used to describe a response to the user
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/interactive
From this we should assume that interactivity can only be sourced by engaging your users at multiple touch points, with the use of social media, great content and a clearly defined structure to your website. There should be a healthy amount of separation between content and design; somewhere flash has always had difficulty being maintained—this is what compliance and W3C compliance are all about, and the only true ways of greater exposure.
Ideally when trying to market your website you will have considered options beyond people speaking at your users automatically and in a completely vexatious manner. There are plenty of alternate marketing methods that are tried and tested with real and scientific results, such as:
Before rushing in and securing your very own flash presenter—like any purchase—it is great to research the pros and cons from an unbiased position, and noting some interesting statistics:
- 28.93% of users are browsing with Firefox — and a safe bet is that these users would be educated enough to use ad blocking software
- 3.86% of users are browsing with Safari (which automatically blocks ads)
- Facebook has over 300 million users, while Twitter has 90 million users and both websites are steadily growing
The Technology Liberation Front have written extensive articles about being liberated from content that is obtrusive and threatens a technological invasion, specifically the use of AdBlock Plus.
When we examine the alternative options of engaging your users using more appropriate marketing and media resources. Using something as niche as web flash presenter doesn’t generate talk-ability—albeit maybe negative—and it doesn’t provide your user base and target audience with the real ability to interact with you and your website.
Whilst it is an option, it is more than likely the worst option for interactivity and user experience, ever.
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