A good business presentation should include audio-visual material. Flash has emerged as a good option for making on-screen presentations, particularly if the audio material requires narrations mixed with different sounds. Web Flash presentations can be impressive — yet, a contrary school of thought believes you should avoid Flash-based presentations on your Web site.

1. Flash presentations may be inappropriate for business sites. No one questions the Flash capability to produce the sort of dazzling presentations that impress clients. They look great, yes. But if your Web site uses plenty of text or utilizes simple interactivity, Flash presentations may not serve you well. It is said Web Flash presentations do not conform to accepted standards. The more effective standard may still be XHTML and the like, especially if you keep open Web standards in mind.

2. Web Flash may be limited to one browser or two. This is not really the fault of Flash, but you may still suffer the consequences. Many designers appear to have forgotten the proper use of web standards in their enthusiasm for Flash. It is not surprising to find sites where the Flash presentations run properly only in one browser or two. What a mess it would be if your designer embeds Flash presentations that forget the existence of other browsers, or even search engines. Text information embedded in the graphics format of Flash presentations is extremely difficult for search engines to find. As a result, your Flash presentation might never be seen during a search. All your branding business efforts capped with good business presentations via Flash would simply go to waste if no one can find them.

3. Analytical reports on Web Flash navigation are difficult to assemble. You want your website to help in branding your business. Analytical reports help you evaluate how successful you are in doing this by providing data such as visitors’ origin, pages visited, etc. The existing analytical systems are not fully able to compile data about web Flash sites, and you would never know where to make adjustments.

4. Flash limits visitor’s web behavior. Web Flash sites may project good business presentations very well, but they limit visitor’s ability to use them. Flash presentations may not allow use of the browser back button, for example, or highlighting contact information for pasting into their contact managers, or adjusting font size. Most important, the visitor may have difficulty bookmarking a page within your site — which limits deep linking to your site, making it less visible to search.

5. Cross-platform support is not consistent in Flash. The Internet works most for everybody if any website continues to function in any browser. Flash does not allow that. Although Flash may be installed in a computer, it may not be the correct update. This point is at the heart of Apple’s dispute with Flash, because of difficulties with navigating Flash websites on their iPhone.

6. Many people want to avoid Flash-based advertising. Most of us don’t like to be disturbed by advertising. To avoid Flash presentations like these, users may simply disable it. Result: your website suffers.

7. Web Flash maintenance becomes difficult. Your website performance is markedly improved if you continually introduce fresh content. When you do this in a Flash site, you will need a Flash designer to integrate the new content into the existing material. This becomes difficult if you don’t have an in-house designer.