Adobe has joined forces with Google and Yahoo to make Flash content more searchable. Nothing will need to be done by the developer community in order to 'optimize' Flash files for search, according to Google. Text, links, and other interactive elements will now be indexed by the popular search engines.

Macromedia had made great efforts in this area with the aid of Jakob Nielsen's group, but met with skepticism by the developer community. Since acquiring Macromedia, Adobe has made a continual effort to enhance Flash and this step - probably more so than any other feature request - will bring Flash and Flex to the forefront in the development community again. Without the problem of indexing and searchability, Flash will become more useful, especially to those with a focus on SEO.

Hope for Flash

In the latest issue of ALA (A List Apart), Dan Mall talks about Flash and where it fits in with the web standards movement. Unfortunately, Flash has seen it's share of criticism and backlashes. But other technologies that have received similar tirades are now coming back, notably JavaScript, which has seen its second coming with Ajax and other technologies. Mall seems to think that Flash is beginning to get similar attention.

Whenever I hear someone from Adobe talk about Flash, [like at the recent Boston InDesign User Group meeting] they always harp on the fact that it can do video. That's only one aspect and when done well, sure, it's really beautiful. But Flash is so much more than just a viable video solution. Fully interactive environments and sites have been created that extol its benefits clearly, much too much to mention here. [See theFWA for more examples.]

I think the hybrid approach that Mall mentions is an interesting, though not unique, concept. Although the example given is pretty cliche, it does show some of Flash's power to talk to other languages and receive information from them. So don't throw Flash aside because it's not Web 2.0.