Hello!
1. Flash Penetration/Reach.
===================
Worldwide Macromedia Flash Player penetration September 2004
December 2004 March 2005 June 2005
Total number of Web users (IDC) 522M 538M 570M 574M
Percentage 98.2% 98.2% 98.3% 97.6%
who can view Macromedia Flash content,
version 2 and higher (NPD)
Total Macromedia Flash penetration 512M 528M 560M 560M
Data Sources
----------------
1. Number of online (Web) users - IDC (International Data
Corporation) Online User Forecast
2. Flash content version 2 and higher. The sampling error for the
NPD study is +/- 2% at the 95% confidence level.
3. Based on a U.S. Sample. Total player penetration is a
calculation of the total number of Web users, divided by the resulting
percentage from the NPD survey. This is an assumption made by
Macromedia.
- http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/penetration.html
?Macromedia Flash Player is the world's most pervasive software
platform, used by over 1 million professionals and reaching more than
98% of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide as well as a wide range of
devices.?
http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/
According to NPD Survey conducted in June 2005, 97.6% computers (that
access Internet) in US have Macromedia Flash Plug-in installed. The
survey also lists Flash penetration in Canada(98.8%), Europe (98.2%)
and Asia(96%),
Please see http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html
for detailed information about this.
About NPD
---------------
?NPD is a leading provider of marketing information on consumer
purchasing and behavior in the U.S. and around the world, with offices
and affiliates spanning North and South America, Europe, Asia and
Australia. NPD is the founder of leading Web measurement service Media
Metrix, Inc. and is a partner in the consumer electronics and
information technology tracking firm NPD INTELECT Market Tracking.?
http:// www.npd.com
2. Pre-Installed Flash Plug-in
=====================
?Macromedia Flash is preinstalled on Windows 98 and above, and IE 4
and above... as well as AOL 7.0, Netscape 4.06 and above, Real Player,
@Home, Mac OS 8 and above, Prodigy, Web TV, and all Mac G3 processors
and above..?
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/survey/
?In September 2001, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix,
conducted a study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have
Macromedia Flash preinstalled. The results show that 97.4% of Web
users (that's 386 million people!) can experience Macromedia Flash
content without having to download and install a player. Earlier
studies have put the figure at 77% (King, Brown and Partners 1999),
83% (NPD Online 1999), and 92% (NPD Online 2000).?
http://www.hyperwrite.com/aspscripts/framer.asp?target=features/flashproscons.htm
3. Flash & Search Engines
===================
Earlier the only limitation which Flash was supposed to have was its
behavior with search engines. This has changed now with the
introduction of ?Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK?. Macromedia
reports that two search engines, viz, Atomz and Picosearch parse the
existing SWF (Flash) files.
?The Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK 1.0 provides search engines
with the means to search and index Macromedia Flash (SWF) movies. The
swf2html utility used by the SDK extracts text and links from a
Macromedia Flash SWF file, and outputs it to stdout or to an HTML
document. When a search engine deploys this SDK, users can locate
relevant Flash content when searching by keyword or file type.?
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_16603
Since you mentioned having Flash content in the front page of your
website, you need not worry about Search Engine Optimization (SEO),
since you can still have META tags like TITLE, KEYWORD and
DESCRIPTION.
End Notes
==========
There is a website that has a topic which is related to your question.
This topic, however, is somewhat old and there does not take into
consideration the latest development of Flash, particularly in SEO
area.
Read ?Flash: The Pros and Cons? at
http://www.hyperwrite.com/aspscripts/framer.asp?target=features/flashproscons.htm
See Also
======
Optimizing Flash for Search Engines
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2161851
Some Search Engines Index Flash Content
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol6/promo_no12.htm
Can Flash Gain Search Engine Respect? (This article covers the topic
of your debate)
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1728697,00.asp
Flash & Search Engines
http://www.newark1.com/form/000059.html
================
I hope you find the above information useful. Please feel free to post
a request for clarification or more information.
Regards,
muhammad-ga,
Google Answers Researcher |
