Over the past week we’ve been setting up our own Facebook Page and getting acquainted with all of the nuances and applications available for it (we’ll be doing a larger post about this later this week). If you’re not familiar with Facebook Pages, it’s essentially a way for fans to connect with the brands, bands and people they identify with. The main thing we wanted to share right now is that Flash can be used in Facebook, and not just for videos but as actual interactive SWFs.

Flash, the Saviour of the Universe

(Insert corny Flash Gordon theme song here). Thats right, Flash can be displayed in Facebook Pages! To some of you this is old news, but since we’ve recently started looking at Facebook Pages, its a major revelation. Our business is built on our portfolio - as we grow we need others to see what we have to offer. Most folks don’t want to keep clicking through photo galleries to see our work, or have to go to another site to see our the beautiful pictures. Sure, we also show our portfolio in the built in Facebook photo gallery and on Flickr, but why sabotage the users browsing experience when we’re trying to entice them. Just doesn’t sound kosher to us.

So that is where Flash came in for us. We wanted to make it super simple to be able to see our work, make it easy for us to update (integrated into our regular site update process), and most importantly, make it sexy but not intrusive to the users experience. We think we did just that.

The Future of Flash and Facebook

The fact that Facebook is allowing Flash to operate within the Facebook Platform is a wonderful thing. Even though we know there will be the occasional pranksters that might use it to turn Facebook into a Myspace clone, we’re banking that the designers and brands that do it right will force these strays to follow in there footsteps.

What we’re hoping to do here at DSGN + DVLP is to increase the user experience for one of our favorite clients by bringing his brand closer to those he entertains. We’re not saying we’re going to hijack the users experience or do any flashterbation, but we’re working on a nice idea for Ben Bailey that will help bring his humor and charisma to his own Page on Facebook. We’ll be sure to share everything with all y’all once its up.

Good Examples?

Browsing around the various Facebook Pages, we didn’t find one single brand that was using this Flash capability in their Page. Who knows, maybe we didn’t look deep enough or maybe we weren’t looking in the right spots. Let us now if you find something.

Now although we might assume that maybe these brands are anti-Flash on Facebook, we’re figuring the truth is they probably just don’t know that it is possible. Only time will really tell.

In the meantime, we’ll be pushing forward with Flash in Facebook and giving our brand’s a new way to interact and entice their users

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Social Media, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.