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NeoPlanet Builds on Flash

NeoPlanet 5.0 integrates Macromedia Flash Player for its forms and ads.

By Cameron Crouch, PCWorld   

The Macromedia Flash Player 4 is now integrated into the free NeoPlanet 5.0 Internet Desktop, both vendors have announced. Neoplanet 5.0 provides Web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, chat, and community functions in its customizable desktop.

Macromedia's Flash creates vector-based Web sites with motion, sound, interactivity, and graphics. The Flash Player enables Web users to view Flash content.

Flash Around the World

Macromedia has cut bundling deals for Flash in a variety of software programs and especially browsers. Every version of Netscape since 4.0.6 includes the Flash Player. Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and later versions of 4.0 bundle it. Both Quicktime 4 and the Real Player include Flash Player 4, and you can add Flash content to Quicktime movies.

"We're trying to get it everywhere, so people who publish Flash content don't have to worry about users downloading the player," says Mark Strassman, director of product marketing and product management for Flash at Macromedia. It's also bundled in Windows 98, some Macintosh systems, and America Online 4.

More than 83 percent of Web browsers worldwide have the Flash Player preinstalled, according to a recent study by NPD Online Research.

NeoPlanet also uses Flash to develop aspects of its desktop, Strassman says. The NeoPlanet Internet Desktop's dialer, registration screens, and online tutorial interfaces use Flash forms that collect information for the NeoPlanet server. The multimedia tool was easier to write in than Java or C++, Strassman says.

Flash-y Ads

Flash powers the rich multimedia that Neoplanet uses in its advertising graphics. Its technology built and supports the NeoPlanet "InfoBox," a persistent advertising space that streams Flash movies. Advertisers can serve rich-media ads to NeoPlanet's 2.3 million users.

For ads, Flash offers an alternative, low bandwidth way to show rich media, which typically promise more attention than banners, Strassman says. In that application, Flash is an alternative to Java, which risks bugs and reliability factors, and is not built into every browser.

Flash ads are smaller than bitmap ads, Strassman says. "The average banner ad is 10KB to 12KB with five or six frames of animation. A similar Flash ad could be 3KB or 4KB."

Macromedia also plans to release the Flash Player source code for a free source license. "Device manufactures like Web TV can not only use Flash Player, but they can build applications with Flash," Strassman adds.

When you log onto Web TV, your home page is built in Flash. Likewise, CompuServe members, many of whom use a dial-up connection, see a Flash interface on the home page.

You need the Player to view NeoPlanet content authored in Flash.