FLASH ‘EM

In 1981, MTV launched an entertainment revolution when it began airing 3-minute music videos round-the-clock instead of traditional 30 and 60-minute programming. The content was radically different too – quick cutaways, odd angles, no static imagery.

In 1982 USA Today brought that same attention deficit to the media with what journalists called “McPaper”: showy graphics and shorter stories that worked for a busier world. A quarter-century later, USA Today is the world’s second-largest newspaper, with 2.2 million readers daily.

As technology makes quantum leaps for consumer attention, businesses are in need of quantum leaps in attention retention.

The ADD Generation rules the airwaves, broadcast and online. If you want your message to be seen, your website to be looked at, you gotta keep things moving, gotta keep their attention.

But its difficult to keep them looking at… oh, fireworks!.... anything for very long, much less a boring, static webpage.

Modern technophiles can watch a movie, surf the web on a laptop, IM friends and check e-mail, all while text messaging a mile a minute on cellular phones that basically double as handheld computers.

How you gonna compete with all that? Easy. Flash ‘em.

Flash animation is all about movement, about capturing the eye, online or in an interactive CD or DVD. And no one does Tampa Bay flash animation better than Maverick.

You may have heard there are drawbacks to Flash – it’s not searchable, some engines can’t find it, blah blah blah. That used to be true. Now, about 97 percent of all computers are Flash-optimized. Metadata can be embedded for search engine optimization. Flash is the medium of choice for movement online.

Flash brings the components of your website to life with video or animation that actually streams without interruption, in manageable file sizes. Flash gives you nearly instantaneous images and silky smooth displays.

From a quality standpoint, many animated television shows are now created in Flash. Even Disney got in the game for its film Disneyland’s 50 Magical Years, featuring a live action Steve Martin quacking it up with orginal, hand-drawn animation of Donald Duck which – guess what? -- was cleaned up and colored in Flash.