This stuff drives me crazy, but it's an interesting example of how a branding strategy can go awry.
The very first Shockwave plug-in allowed the playback of Macromedia Director 4 authored content, then the company's flagship product. Eventually other Macromedia products had plug-in players released under the Shockwave moniker; Shockwave for Freehand, Shockwave for Authorware, and several others now dearly (or not) departed, none of which saw very much use or brand awareness.
However, with the purchase, rebranding, release and most importantly the browser bundling of the Flash plug-in, Macromedia now had two popular "Shockwave for x" products in the very same space; confusion reigned supreme.
Too late, Macromedia recognized the problem and began referring to the Flash plug-in as the "Flash Player".
Another infamous example of brand confusion is the Java or JavaScript debacle. grrrr.
I'm glad to hear of this author and will check his work out, but how can you append "with a sense of humor" to "a Japanese version of PKD"? Humor was a huge component of PKD's writing style. Ever read Ubik or the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch?
Not entirely true, the Flash 4 "publish" feature extracts URL and text from the Flash movie and embeds such as search engine readable comments in the generated HTML file. Flash 3 users can use the included Aftershock tool to do the same.
Of course, if the intent is to bring users to a specific point in a Flash movie then that can be problematic, but framed sites have similar issues. It's all about paying attention and doing the right thing at the right time at the right place, etc.
(Sorry for the cross-thread post -- I thought it an important point and this seemed the more appropriate location)
"The much-maligned multimedia plug-in bites back" in A List Apart's Sympathy for the Plug-in. Fave quote from the devil (regarding plug-in distribution): "My penetration levels are high, high, high. Your mother dreams of penetration like mine."
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Seems to work for me in 11.3.3, which I think was released this week.
This stuff drives me crazy, but it's an interesting example of how a branding strategy can go awry.
The very first Shockwave plug-in allowed the playback of Macromedia Director 4 authored content, then the company's flagship product. Eventually other Macromedia products had plug-in players released under the Shockwave moniker; Shockwave for Freehand, Shockwave for Authorware, and several others now dearly (or not) departed, none of which saw very much use or brand awareness.
However, with the purchase, rebranding, release and most importantly the browser bundling of the Flash plug-in, Macromedia now had two popular "Shockwave for x" products in the very same space; confusion reigned supreme.
Too late, Macromedia recognized the problem and began referring to the Flash plug-in as the "Flash Player".
Another infamous example of brand confusion is the Java or JavaScript debacle. grrrr.
I'm glad to hear of this author and will check his work out, but how can you append "with a sense of humor" to "a Japanese version of PKD"? Humor was a huge component of PKD's writing style. Ever read Ubik or the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch?
Of course, if the intent is to bring users to a specific point in a Flash movie then that can be problematic, but framed sites have similar issues. It's all about paying attention and doing the right thing at the right time at the right place, etc.
(Sorry for the cross-thread post -- I thought it an important point and this seemed the more appropriate location)
"The much-maligned multimedia plug-in bites back" in A List Apart's Sympathy for the Plug-in. Fave quote from the devil (regarding plug-in distribution): "My penetration levels are high, high, high. Your mother dreams of penetration like mine."