1) Google cannot read flash words UNLESS whoever programmed the flash portion of your website has taken the time to have those words coded in such a way that they are discoverable by a search engine. Unfortunately, most flash that is produced for websites out there are not coded in this way because they were created by “click and shoot” flash development tools. You have to be able to dive into the actual flash code to allocate the words you want to have read by search engines.

2) Your customers really don’t care about the fancy flash presentation in your website. Yes your menu has a wonderful glowing effect when a mouse is hovered over it and the speakers crackle with Star Trek noises but do you honestly believe that this has ANY influence at all in your customers deciding whether to buy a car from you? Not one bit. They are there to check out your inventory, see what your specials might be and to maybe check out your embedded Google map on where to find you. Other than that, all your fancy website huff and puff is little more than a guy dressed like a pimp trying to get a date with the prom queen. It just makes you look ridiculous. Keep your website simple and professional looking and you will get a lot more mileage out of it than trying to look like some jackass who has to have the largest Christmas light display on the block.

3) Flash is totally useless on things like the iPhone and iPad and other similar products. This is because they were made with a thing called “gestures” using your finger movements to control what is happening on the screen. Virtually all flash presentations out there are coded to rely on mouse-over interactions to make things like menus to appear and other similar effects. Since the iPhone and iPad don’t use a mouse, every flash app out there that depends on this for navigation purposes or the like would be totally broken when viewed on any of these devices which explains one of the reasons that Steve Jobs refuses to allow it to run. With this in mind, the flash portion of every website out there would have to be recoded to work with gestures which is something that I am sure is not going to happen anytime soon.

4) Anything else that you have come to depend upon flash to perform (movies, animations, etc.) can most likely be handled with simple javascript, css, and basic html. Now when it comes to what css3 and html5 are going to be offering in the very near future, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will pretty much completely seal the lid on the coffin of flash at that time. Not only that but html, css and javascript are totally open languages that are not under the developmental control of one company’s influence. Flash, on the other hand, is totally owned and operated by Adobe and is a closed and proprietary system. If something were to happen to Adobe as a company, where would your support and improvements come from that would allow you to stay current with ever changing technologies. Not a problem with javascript, html or css. I, for one, am hedging my bets on the open source languages to withstand the test of time.