For months, Flash has been taking a beating from designers, developers, media executives and technology enthusiasts. HTML5 was the new kid on the block and boy is he popular. Love for flash quickly dwindled. Apple's iPad chose to ignore it once again. Steve Jobs and Co. openly dismisses it.

It's sad - because it's untrue! Sure, right now, the software and hardware on mobile phones and handhelds may not be the best playground for the Flash juggernaut, and yes, H264 is a more modern video format - but everyone lost sight of what Flash was and is to this day - a develpment platform for creating ultra engaging and rich media environments! It didn't start out as a video player. And it definitely wasn't created to duplicate HTML websites. Nope - it was devised to push the envelope and provide internet users the ability to go beyond the boundaries of their browser and give creators (designers AND developers) the power, ease and flexibility of creating whatever they wanted in one IDE.

The folks at Rune Entertainment sure do - and yes - they are Canadian. Not just healthcare, but the Canadians, of all people, got it right when it comes to designing kick ass websites using Flash =)

Check out their latest incarnation, HailTheVillain.com, a site that combines comic book art direction with videogame-like interactivity and movie-like story telling.

Again, I love how the folks at ESPN.com thinks. It was very stealthily done, but ESPN recently updated their site's main Navigation. Before the recent makeover, the site sported (no pun inteded) a very subtle original look and feel that tried its best to cram all sports and links into a 2 tray style menu. The subtle look did it's job to make it not seem overwhelming, but almost too well. The transparency style of the nav blended all too well with the background, therefore rendering it lost in the visuals. Great for the content and banner ads but terrible for users trying to find what they need.

Recently, however, they changed their navigation to a more simple jet black and white style. Bringing much needed focus back to the menu area. Not only that, but the main inclusion for this modification was that they added a "add a sport" button which allows a logged in user to customize their own navigation. The benefits are two-fold: it allows for a cleaner look (without fading out the nav elements) and it allows users to choose whatever links he or she cares about most. By doing this, ESPN demonstrates that they understand how sports fans think and creates a brilliant solution for how their more power users navigate their site. Logged out fans still get the most popular sports on the top rail and all others tucked into the second or sub navs. I also like how this adds a lot more value to a logged in user.

Old Nav Style

New Nav Style (Logged In)

Ahhhh much better.. wouldn't you agree?

While researching the many options and approaches to developing a mobile product, I encountered a company called Mobile Roadie. With over 100 iPhone and Android apps in the market and names like Madonna and Taylor Swift utilizing their template style apps development approach, and most importantly - a price tag of just $499 to set up, it was hard not to ignore. The seemingly cost effective, rapid roll-out strategy and easy-to-use CMS makes it very enticing to all brand owners and music artists without a solid next-gen mobile product or a hefty budget to consider Mobile Roadie as a valid approach.

Mobile Roadie Chart

With this in mind, I created a cost benefit analysis spreadsheet that explores a possible 12 month scenario for utilizing Mobile Roadie. It takes into account all the costs (setup and monthly) associated with Mobile Roadie as well as Apple. Almost all apps experience a diminishing returns as a month-to-month downloads performance. Taking that into consideration, I built a model that uses an assumption for initial downloads and then a gradual decrease of downloads overtime.

To check out the full model on the spreadsheet, click here! I am also happy to share if you would like to get a copy and play around with the assumptions for different results. Just contact me here.