In this post useless animation era, i always wonder what is flash for ?

1/ Everybody use to skip the flash intro when they go online
2/ Flash contents is not indexed by robots.
3/ Flash applications are long and expensive to develop
4/ For any new projects developers need to start over.



Flash is definitely a big kid toy.

What do you think

It's not entirely useless. I use it on my main page to show three key words that I want clients to know that I think sum up my business.

On my testimonials page I use a very simple scroller to scroll key points made in each testimonial.

Other than that, though, I don't have much use for it.

Well remember you can integrate it with anything so flash/php or watever nothings useless besides flash looks pretty. Just kinda slow for the dialup users

I don't mind small flash banners. But complete flash websites are alittle annoying because you need to download so much.

I think that flash is INCREDIBLY useful. However so many developers use it in a poor way that I would agree that most flash sites are useless.

I tend to use flash to create elements of a site, rather than whole sites. I find it particularly useful when integrating with a database to create dynamic images / animations which would be difficult via other means (for instance a dynamic map) or where timing control is required (e.g. an interactive test).

I agree that flash development does seem slow, but I suspect that this is partly down to the fact that we do a lot less of it than other types of development.

Still can't wait until the mobile version is on more phones though - got some nice application ideas for that.

Flash content IS indexed by robots (not all though). Google announced that a while ago. So even if you have a purely flash site, you WILL get indexed (by Google at least).

I find full flash sites and flash intros incredibly annoying. However, I think flash is very useful. There are certain web elements and animations that can add to a site as long as they are done right and in the right amounts. Its kind of like clip art. Some people go crazy with clip art on their sites and it ends up looking really bad. But when clip art is used properly, a page can look surprisingly nice.
I have been using Flash in some of my logo creations lately. NOT for animation. Flash is pretty powerful in vector drawing. If I have trouble drawing something in Fireworks or Illustrator, I can usually do it easily in flash, then bring it back over to Illustrator.

here's an interesting article on flash accessibilty
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/flash/