Is the world ready for Flash for dummies? Absolutely

Does the world really need another software add-on product?

That was my first question to Pat Sullivan, a serial software entrepreneur who started ACT and SalesLogix CRM. What was so broken that needed to be fixed with his latest company, Flypaper Studio?

CEO Pat Sullivan

(Credit: Flypaper Studio)

I suppose you could ask the same question about any number of so-called Web 2.0 apps that have appeared in the last couple of years. Still, as a former heavy-duty ACT user, I was especially curious to hear Sullivan's explanation.

The way Sullivan explains it, we're basically talking about something akin to Flash animations for dummies (my take.) With roughly a couple of million professional Flash programmers out there, ginning up fancy pages for their clients, the idea behind Flypaper is to give non-programmers the ability to repurpose that professional content. And, best of all, without paying anything extra for the "privilege." With so many companies in the United States battling the sub-prime blues, any cost-saving idea is worth serious consideration.

Flypaper dashboard

"There was a big problem in that Adobe Flash...is unavailable to the masses. The only way a mere mortal can do something really cool on a Web site or in a presentation is to hire a Flash programmer for a lot of money," said Sullivan. "They deliver (the finished project) to you in a form you can never edit or change. You're tethered to that programmer. We came to believe that that was really a big problem."

The project recently moved out of beta testing and is being offered in a free general release as well as a professional version for $195 per seat. The paid version also lets customers poll data through Web services and includes up to one gigabyte of storage.

I don't know if Flypaper's destiny is to remain an independent company or become a cool feature in another company's product portfolio. But the idea is intriguing. Flypaper would help businesses bypass pricey tech gatekeepers, who otherwise would be able to demand extra payment for extra work on their creations. As someone working in the Fourth Estate, I can't help but note the irony here. Over the last several years, so many techies have expressed delight at how technology was allowing the masses to bypass the former gatekeepers (ie: the press) to get their message out to the wider world. Now, it's come full circle. The implications potentially are profound. But that's fodder for another day.

Flypaper forms screen

In the meantime, the business plan was compelling enough to convince Sierra Ventures and SCF Arizona of Phoenix to supply $3.5 million in funding to Flypaper. The announcement hits the wire today. Last February, both organizations were participants in the first round of funding for the Phoenix-based company.

One immediate hurdle is the absence of enthusiasm among most regular people to try their hand at coding. Even if this is as simple as Flypaper claims-and nothing's ever as simple as they say in a press briefing--there's a lot of missionary work remaining. Flypaper will need to convince businesses its product is worth their peoples' time and invest the effort in training them. Corporate marketing departments and content creators will understand the gist of that argument without much trouble. But that's only a small part of any organization.

Sullivan says he heard similar arguments when he was selling contact management software.

"With ACT, there was a certain amount time the salesperson had to invest to get what they wanted out of it," he said. "But once they caught vision of what they wanted to do, they invested the time. I think the same thing will happen here...this is kind of like ACT in the beginning, where you had to convince people that yeah, you can do it. Every product has its market mountain to climb. That's part of the fun of it."

[aMUSICsite]

"Flypaper does not currently have a Macintosh version. We know it?s not the same as a native Macintosh application, but many Mac users are using Flypaper on their Macintosh with Windows using popular Parallels Desktop, Apple Boot Camp or VMware Fusion virtual machine software. Flypaper will not install on 64-bit editions of Windows XP or Vista at this time."

Not ready yet!

[Kev Orng]

Hey, as a Flash programmer, (among other things) I consider my code and .fla files to be proprietary, however, there are multiple options for the client to buy it out. But even if they don't, they are not tied to my company if they want to revisit the work. They can hire someone else to duplicate it easily enough, and just about every Flash programmer probably has a Flash decompiler kicking around so we can look at other programmer's proprietary code.

We also do video production. The client buys a finished production, but the footage belongs to us. They can buy out the footage if they like, or they can buy a handy cam and shoot it themselves. We don't have a problem with this, because we know that the next time they want to do a video production, or a Flash animation, they'll come back to someone who knows how to do it right.

[Kev Orng]

To respond to my own comment, I actually don't even like Flash. If I was my client, I would not use it. I regularly try to talk people out of it. But they keep asking for it, so I had to learn it.

[brundlefly76]

This is a great idea, because Flash developers charge WAY too much money.

The couple of times I have taken bids for a Flash project I have laughed at the ridiculously high rates and massive range of pricing - its really absurd. I could hire a C, Java, or Perl developer to deliver software 10x as complex and time consuming for the same price.

As a result, I just don't use Flash on my sites - I don't even want to go down that road.

Adobe has really set up a nice little profitable niche for their Flash developers with a carefully constructed business model. They are the masters at artificially maintaining ridiculously high margins.

I mean, seriously - after all these years, how is Photoshop still $600 while their competition is about $100?

[Kev Orng]

I don't blame you. I wish my clients would stop wanting Flash all the time, so I can get back to doing video production.

[ElMartino1]

It's about time. I do site html and php, and having to dig though some other ass's code can take hours because it's so buried and hidden in invisible objects. It's very annoying, and ActionScript 3.0 is just getting ridiculous.

[mikemwe]

Swish has been out there for a number of years and it is for dummies just like this program. Check it out. For $99, you get get a better program and there's no programming required unless you want to get into scripting. Either way, you can make quality Flash animations in minutes.

[navinparray]

I used swish recently while testing out some options and I found swish to be so easy to quickly develop a simple flash file.

[dnheller]

Flash sucks, no matter how cheap or easy. It breaks the web document navigation model, takes too long to load, encourages designers to throw in every useless but interesting visual trick "because it's cool" and forces a straight-jacket use of web sites on end-users.

Few pieces of content actually require the more linear/video model of Flash.

Repeat after me: "FLASH IS BAD"

[The_Decider]

I agree. It does have its place but it is used in places it shouldn't. When an entire web site is flash based, you know they are clueless about important topics like rendering speed, usability and standards compliance.

[blcnet]

"... who otherwise would be able to demand extra payment for extra work ..." Yeah, what a bunch of commies - demanding to be paid for doing extra work!

[xcLusfx]

This is a great idea, however there's been plenty of these tools in the past, and none of them can create complex programming logic. Once you get down to it.. only code can create things GUI cannot do. It is great for the simple website, but you're not creating anything that'll win an award. You' going to have to come up with a MAC version, cause what creative person uses PC?

Flash developers charge so much, because they can. If you don't want to pay for it, then go find yourself a non-flash developer. You can't really say, html, c, java, php is better, because they run on different platforms, and the experience is different. it is a personal preference. ANYONE would charge that much if they had a skill that was WORTH that much.

As for the angry comments about flash sucking..and flash being bad, and it is too hard to program flash, and as3. It only sucks for you...not to the other 99% users. ActionScript 3.0 is just as robust as C++, Java, C#. Know your technologies before making such ridiculous comments

[xcopy]

"You' going to have to come up with a MAC version, cause what creative person uses PC?"

I guess those capable of independent thought. Bahhh! Bahhh! iSheep unite!

What a moron...

[The_Decider]

"ActionScript 3.0 is just as robust as C++, Java, C#"


LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Thanks for the laugh.

[Thomas, David]

Someone beat me to it.

"ActionScript 3.0 is just as robust as C++, Java, C#. Know your technologies before making such ridiculous comments"

The above quote is the most ridiculous comment I've ever heard. What makes matters worse, you simply lumped binary, and run-time supported languages together. In case you didn't know C++ is less like Java, and C# than some would like you to believe, while Java, C# are closer in nature. Action Script is not in the same class as any of them ... Period ... Get that insane idea out of your head.

[michaelo1966]

Actionscript 3 rocks... Flypaper seems like just another IDE; there's already strong component support in Flash for those who want to program and release components. For those of us who don't -- who release our FLA's to be run indendently -- remember that our work is copyright and proprietary; steal it and the only thing that'll end up mashed up is your wallet from a successful copyright infringement suit. Whatever ... I wish this company well; when users outgrow Flypaper they'll turn to professional Flash developers to extend the feature-set their users have come to demand, then we'll have even more work.

Sheesh, why such hostility towards Flash programmers? I have a friend who has spent 10 years learning Adobe products and produces excellent work for clients. I guess 10 years of education only counts for doctors to be able to charge rediculous amounts of money, or maybe the dentist who wants to charge $900 to fill a cavity in my son's mouth? I'm a Java, .Net, PHP programmer and web developer and still can't get my hands around Flash after trying several times. Admittedly you can do some way cool stuff with it. Of course you also have to have some creative skills, which I guess counts for nothing?

[The_Decider]

10 years to learn crap like ActionScript?

Your friend isn't very bright.

There is a world of difference between a programmer and a "flash programmer". Your comments show that you really aren't a programmer, you just know enough of those languages to use it in your niche. That is an API monkey, not a programmer.

[ItsHeather]

I couldn't agree more with you. What is up with the hostility? I have a degree in Digital Arts and I guess my $100, 000 debt to make myself a more educated person and a lot of all nighters to study and learn programs like Flash and coding languages like Action Script, XML, CSS and so on, means nothing.

[The_Decider]

I would ask for a refund if you believe that XML and CSS are "coding languages". Educated? Let me guess, ITT Tech? LOL

I am a computer science masters student who hasn't spent near $100,000 and can learn simple crap like action script in short order by teaching myself. I needed to take a class or two and get help from my professors to learn how to create my own language and write a virtual machine for it, but take classes to learn Flash, XML, or CSS? LOL

[seatrooper]

Until Flash is completely and fully search-engine-friendly, it's only useful for a couple of neat tricks. This is coming from a Flash developer and web standards friendly designer.

[44r0n.5]

The reason good Flash site designers are so rare and expensive is because there are so few people who have both strong design skills AND are fast and intuitive at learning new programming languages. It's like tring to find a mathematician who can paint landscapes.

I have an Art and Design background and the hardest language (besides english) I ever grasped was basic. When I landed a long term freelance job where one of my main duties was to design and maintain the company's web page, I thought it would be a good opertunity to learn Flash. WRONG! I bought two books on Flash programming and spent a year just trying to embody the owner's (and my) design. I'd spend two weeks learning how to make an animated button do what it was supposed to, and then I'd have to reanimate it so that it would; then, I'd have to spend another two weeks relearning how to program the button again because my brain won't save things in long term memory that don't make sense!

If there is any programming involved in Flypaper, then I'm not interested. I'd rather pay the thousands of dollars next time I need a Flash site, and I actually own my own Flash CS3.

[danieljohn32]

Good to hear this. But to be honest we already have lots of good easy flash creation tools from powerpoint like powerflashpoint, arbiculate.