We have all been in the situation, you visit a webpage that has some content of an audio/visual variety, and you are presented with a choice of file formats. What will it be sir? Realplayer, Quicktime, or Windows Media Player.
- RealPlayer (ah no due to my last windows reinstall it has not associated itself with the filetype, so I’ll have to load it from the Program Files directory, no thats some bloatware, ah thats the main .exe, sit while it fetches it bloated media welcome page, then open the URL, and wait while it buffers and possible times out)
- Quicktime (ah no did I install that bloatware yet, em oh yes there is the annoying icon by the clock, ok lets click ah no whats that ahrd drive trashing about, oh it demonstrating Parkinson’s law by loading the file in a way that uses all the RAM regardless of how much it has)
- Windows Media Player (it is installed by default, and even if its not the latest version it will actially update, but its made by Microsoft)
- Flashplayer (excellent it will always work)
Why doesn’t everyone make their content available via a Flash player? YouTube do, and I think that is the secret of their success, it just simply works. There was a time I’ll admit, when I enjoyed configuring the other players to actually work, for example back in the hazy days of 1995 on Windows 3.11 (for Workgroups!) I used Quicktime to view JPGs. But then again I had no alternative.
This bring me to he success of YouTube, there are many reasons for its success, even in 1995 I people exchanged funny videos of cats playing pianos in AVI format, and most recent commentators have reaffirmed their enjoyment at viewing same even today, they call it social networking or em web2.0 or something, but how come there is not more praise for the Flash player.
The Flash player is perfect for what youtube and google video are doing. It’s the massive overuse of flash elsewhere that drives me nuts