Flash in Memorial

My recollection of flash, it was one of the first wonder tools of the internet. As a developer in the late nineties the internet in general struggled to be as dynamic as desktop software or other traditional mediums. So when flash showed up, it all changed. Interface could be created to improve usability. Games could be great. Ads could be attention getting, dynamic, and fun. Artist like Odd Todd created art based exclusively on this format. This was all new. As Flash developed, it grew increasingly complex. You could start to create multi-input forms with live time feedback. You could create interface that were exactly the same from browser to browser. This was a real struggle in the early internet days. One of the things I remember most was how beautifully you could display graphed information. Have it moving real time. Finally finally! The possibility of web applications competing with real software was viable. Which a lot of web developers want to be on par and respected as their software developing counter parts. Then it exploded. A small company started called YouTube. This company was dedicated to making videos easier to upload, encode, and share. Flash was the perfect vehicle for video. Overnight, Flash was everywhere. It was the perfect filler between static website and interactivity. What goes up must come down. Interoperability. Simply put it is the ability to work across operating system and across browsers. Without ineroperabiliety the internet world crumbles. Well that is exactly what Apple's IPhone forced. Through either dispute or technological failings, Flash never got access to the 1^st wave of the mobile market. This lead to new standards taking over. Website were reworked. Overnight, Youtube abonded the flash format. Tools like JW Player supplanted Flash. HTML5, CSS, Web 2.0 all colluded to created a world where flash video viewing was pass é. With the development of more better dynamic HTML tools. Flash no longer became the technology of choice. The wonder and amazement was still there, but the Flash was gone. Flash is still used in some industry for animation. But on the web it is being more and more crowded out. Recently Firefox has taken to including warning to using flash because of security risk. Most likely, you don't have any flash on your site. And if you do they will probably be getting rid of it shortly. But let's take a moment to remember, that it was our first glimpse into the future.