Now, now, this is a family site. Let's keep it clean. The F word I mean is FLASH.

This word engenders such polarized reactions from our clients and collaborators. Some folks love it. They love the movement, the interactivity, the chance to be unique. And some folks absolutely detest Flash, informing me that in no uncertain terms should Flash even figure into their site.

This latter group makes me wonder if they aren't stuck in the days of the pre-loader, the days of SKIP INTRO. Maybe, maybe not.

There are valid concerns about Flash. And having my new iPad highlights its negative. But that is more about Apple waging war on Adobe than the incompatibility of Flash with mobile browsing. But the other major concern is search.

I used to have to educate our clients on what search is and why it's important. But nowadays, that speech is no longer necessary. Even the uninitiated know that Google matters. And till recently, Flash was thought of as the search-killer. You can't index it--which means that search engines can't see into it. They just see a black box. Instead of multiple pages of content, you get one big movie, and spiders can't deal with that. They like bite size pieces.

Things are changing.

A technique called deep linking allows developers to provide specific URLs for specific states in the Flash application or page.  The what and how of this technique is gorpy, and not something I can really write about with any knowledge -- that's Tony's department. But at least there are options now, and that means folks who like the F word don't have to hide anymore.