How Ning could be come the fastest network to browse while supporting iPhone, iPad etc.

[Brian Floe]

• Other companies are abandoning flash: Scribd Hulu YouTube and others. YouTube is in a funny position. At the same time they announce that "Flash is not dead" because this is where they can compete against Apple iOS devices and yet at the same time they quickly develop a HTML5 version of YouTube to keep up with demand.

• Whoever gets to HTML 5 and CSS3 first, will have the fastest platform out there.
Either Ning makes the switch now or later, it will be the same work but switching now will put them out there with the fastest platform first. So why wait?

• Microsoft has already announced support for HTML5 and CSS3 but what do we do in the meantime?

• There is already developed a javascript library that mimics CSS3 for browsers who are a little slow in keeping up with the latest technology ....like Internet Explorer.



Technically there is nothing preventing Ning from becoming the fastest website out there to browse if they asap begun switching away from flash:
* iPhone, iPad, iPod touch would suddenly work on Ning for showing videos, bulk uploading, Chat etc.
* The 2 things on the Ning platform that does not work runs in flash: select from your list of friends (to share) & Chat !

disclaimer: I'm no programmer, so if I am totally mistaken just tell me. It would help me learn more about all this stuff.

[Digital Janitor]

My phone works great for the site, it's an Android, and flash works on that platform. What I think your going to see is the phones adapting to the flash platform before you see it go away.

Flash is a great product and gives a ton of power to a developer but it has been hard to deal with on mobile platforms. Having said that I abandoned my flash development about 6 years ago as a programmer. I had to make a choice in what platform I wanted to develop a particular software package in and Flash, at the time, did not do what we needed.

What do I know though!

Have a good one Brian.

[Brian Floe]

(not getting email notifications for this thread and it's set to "follow")

Thanks for your feedback and perspective NMZ, appreciate it.

Some people thinks Flash is ok, others thinks it's not ok and so the war wages on. It's become a personal preference much of the way.
So our personal opinions about Flash aside, here is why I think Ning needs to make the move as soon as possible:

• Flash products on Ning is being criticized a lot by the NCs. Features like Chat and "Choose from your list of friends" is not the most stable features on our platform.

• The most used mobile device for accessing the internet is iOS devices and it's growing fast which means that more and more of our visitors will be accessing your network via iOS devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad) going into the future.
LINK

• Apple is selling quite a lot of iOS devices without them having Flash so there is no emerging incentive to make Flash run on iOS. In fact the selling curve is going up.

• More and more websites are offering non-Flash versions. Websites like YouTube etc.
If they will keep maintaining the Flash versions since everyone can access the HTML5/CSS versions and the Flash version cannot be accessed by their growing iOS visitors, remains to be seen.


So a lot of big players have already begun taking iOS serious and I think some of the reasons are stated above. But the killer argument is really that even on desktop machines that do have Flash, HTML5 and CSS solutions will run like Carl Lewis! :)

[Evan]

Hey Brian!

We've actually been making some under-the-hood changes to support HTML 5 & CSS3. We're not there yet, but it's something we want to do.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Brian Floe]

(I have not gotten ONE email notification from Ning Creators forum in more than a week now - so I'm constantly missing out on replies - like in this thread. I discovered the replies by accident. This is obviously not good for activity. It is of cause set to "follow")


That sounds great Evan - I was especially interested in hearing your thoughts on the Javascript library which emulates CSS3 on ALL browsers (that have Javascript enabled of cause) ?

Would this be a hassle? A buggy idea? Not worth it? Or could it pave the way for Ning to adopt CSS3 "today" rather than wait for the usual slow adopters like Internet Explorer ?

[Pat Howlett]

Hey Evan, any update to moving the video player away from Flash to HTML5? 

[bILLY]

+1