FLASH: Flasher Income & Market Realities

[Wayne Townsend]

>Just to throw in here...

>

>I develop Flash for Fortune 1000 companies, I teach Flash to many of those

>same companies, and I develop training and other educational material at

>well...  I am working on getting to 6 figures right now. Thats just how it

>is.  Grant it, last week I was out getting piss ass drunk on my 21st

>birthday, but thats another issue entirely.  I usually don't talk about the

>$ issues on the list, since largely I feel its none of anyones business, but

>I would love to see the work that nets someone a cool mil a year, because

>personally I think its horseshit.

>

>-= Branden J. Hall


Hello Brandon,


>personally I think its horseshit.


No Brandon, this is coming from the horses mouth, not the other end. 

;)  Thanks for giving me a chuckle.


I'm very familiar with your work, and am often in awe of it.  You 

have shown us many times how far this technology could be pushed, and 

have inspired my work over the past couple of years.  Fellows like 

you keep pushing the bar up, and consistently do things that people 

never dreamed could be done with Flash.


I mention this because about a year ago, your action scripting 

triggered me to realize that one can do something more than write 

fancy animated websites with Flash.  Specifically, you can build 

*web-applications*.


Web-Apps are the future IMO, and signify the beginning of the next 

generation of the web.


Most significantly, they are *products*.  And this is *the key* to 

the income thing.


Writing websites with Flash makes a lot of people a good living these 

days.  Often in the range of a fully degreed professional.  Not bad 

at all.


But there is a limit on what anyone can earn writing general Flash 

websites because you are trading straight labor for a pay check, and 

there are only so many hours in the day.  Also, hourly rates are 

driven by an industry standard although some very talented people are 

able to exceed the standard because their work indicates they are 

worth it.  I believe you fall into this category, Brandon.


At any rate, money is not the prime motivator for many people, and 

that's fine.  Money is not the only measuring stick for success.  I 

never said that it was.  Success is a personal thing.  I only was 

pointing out that properly channeled, Flash designers have a far 

higher income ceiling than many may realize.


There are indeed market opportunities now, and if you're a pro at 

Flash, this window is open wide for you this year, assuming you can 

handle a paradigm shift about the web and what it is becoming.


Independent thinkers, listen up....


Think *Web-Apps*.  What's that?


Simply an application that runs on the web, preferably written in 

Flash.  It differs from the desktop apps that you use mainly in that 

it is a *community* application, and runs from a server instead of 

from your desktop, and the audience files stay on the server.


It is a program that is not marketed in the traditional way, ie. 

boxes on store shelves, but instead there is one copy on a server 

that the audience accesses.  Lots of marketing problems go away with 

Web-Apps, from distribution costs, instant POS satisfaction, to copy 

protection, to knowing exactly who your audience is. And on, and on.


Some old-time programmers may recognize this as a circle back to the 

days of mainframe - dumb terminal networks.  I'm not here to debate 

the merits of PCs over NCs, I'm just saying that with the way that 

the web has evolved, the opportunity exists.


Larry Ellison is not entirely wrong about his network computer 

theories, and his day will come, but keep in mind that he didn't 

originate the idea either.  A lot of people knew this was coming a 

long time ago.  But the stage changed in ways that people didn't 

predict - enter Flash-4.  As Flashers, we have the advantage because 

we can make a lot of this work in software, and we don't require the 

audience to adapt to any new hardware- what's out there now will do 

just fine.  So we, because we are Flashers, can lead the way, today. 

And our system is better, because the client's PCs is in general a 

heck of a lot faster and smarter than Larry's box, not to mention 

already established in the marketplace.



In regards to personal income, building websites is limited.

Building web *products* is not, because you can market your 

*products* many times over.

If your web product is one that earns real money for the company you 

sell it to, your price can be at a level that reflects that, as ours 

are.  It's a ROI thing, not a matter of development hours @ X/hr. 

That doesn't even enter into the picture.

If your web product is one that earns real money, you also have the 

option to operate it yourself, and keep *all* of the income.


But you have to be able to create a *hit*.  That's what it's all 

based on.  Just like TV, the movies, and all that.  The web is now 

merging into that world.  The bottom line is *If* your Flash Web-App 

becomes a hit, you are set, and I'm not kidding.  You have the 

opportunity to create one, because you know Flash, so if I were you, 

I'd get to know it a lot better.  Two words, "Action Scripting".



There are two ways your Web-App generates income.


Either pay-for-play, or sponsorship / advertising.  There are others, 

but these two are the majors.

If your Web-App becomes popular enough with the audience, then the 

sponsorship dollars come into play, and that's serious money.  That's 

what built the TV industry.


At Accesson, currently we're into internet gaming because it is a 

sector that is proven to be very profitable.  Web-based training is 

the other one, and will become huge, I predict much larger than 

e-commerce.  Like a lot of people, I'm still waiting for Amazon.com 

to actually earn a dime in profit not to mention the thousands of 

others that are hawking products over the net.  That's not really 

where you want to be.


Games are a great example, but they aren't the only kind of Web-Apps. 

There are literally thousands of possibilities.  Just look around. 

Ask yourself "What program would the audience pay for? or what would 

be really popular program? -one that would build enough traffic that 

advertisers would be interested in paying for it".  While you're 

doing that, also realize that you are marketing to a TV-generation 

audience, and so it's a very good idea to learn about and incorporate 

TV-style production values into your product.  Those Hollywood TV and 

Movie production guys *really* know how to appeal to a mass audience, 

through years of testing and experience.  It's no accident that their 

productions look and feel the way they do.  They simply *know* what 

sells.  Ask yourself how can you incorporate those methods into your 

web product, because the days of static "pages" are quickly coming to 

an end.


Your marketing advantage is that Web-Apps are far *stickier* than 

your average website, meaning that people spend a lot more time on 

them, and that is of paramount importance to sponsorship revenue.


People, you hold in your hands the key to creating successful, 

extremely profitable Web-Apps *now*.  Flash is scriptable, and that's 

what it's all about, baby!  It makes it so that you can create *real* 

applications that run in the browser.  It works well cross-platform, 

and it has incredible distribution, a feat MacroMedia accomplished 

that is the envy of the industry. You can write real web-based 

applications with it, which is far more *profitable* than fancy 

animated websites.  Flash is so much more capable than it's public 

image as an animation tool.


I've proven it.  BingoMagic is a game, and not everybody writes 

games, but games are a good example because they push the technology 

and always have.


Now look at what that BingoMagic Web-App is doing with Flash, and 

think about how that applies  to your Web-App.

http://betaserver.metgames.com/permtest.html


It's handling hundreds of users real-time, and that amount is 

scaleable just by throwing more servers at it as the traffic grows. 

It's saving client data.  It's passing tons of variables back and 

forth, both local user and community global.  It's a Flash Web-App 

that is giving a community experience.  And it has production values 

that blow away anything you can do in HTML or Java.



The web game is far from over; it's only beginning, and darn near 

*anything* is possible, including what any of us can do with it, 

which includes *your* income and personal satisfaction.


<I pass the soapbox>


All the best,


/w


Wayne Townsend

Founder, CEO, AccessOn

waynetaccesson [dot] net

Alt:

waynetabsolute [dot] net

studio: 760.329.9990 (US)

Toll Free: 800..399.4969

cell: 760.902.5299 (US)

AccessOn.Net

http://www.accesson.net


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