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Barney Sheehan on Mark Badger, Flash and Zuda
posted November 4, 2007
 

[original article referenced]

With all deference to Mr. Badger's flash programming skills he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to Zuda's Flash viewer. Yes YouTube uses flash but it is delivering an entirely different medium, video. Using a flash interface for watching videos simplified the experience for the end user making it more enjoyable. Using it to view webcomics is a solution looking for a problem. The web browser was designed specifically for just this kind of use. Every modern web browser comes equipped to be a webcomic reader. They can render all the most popular image formats (jpegs, gifs, png etc...) and process the html needed for navigation. Adding a layer of flash over top of what is already a basic function only adds bloat to what should be a simple operation.

As for the wait time on Zuda, having full screen images is not an excuse. Off the top of my head I can think of two examples of webcomics that use large scale images: Kazu Kibuishi's Cooper and Ryan Armand's Minus both of which load almost immediately on my dsl connection. And I shouldn't forget to mention Girl Genius.

I can see what Flash offers to Zuda, it gives them more control over their product and how it is used. They need restrictions to feel safer about their intellectual property. To the end user though it offers less and provides no functionality they do not already have in their web browsers. My prediction is that waiting fatigue is going to be a real impediment to anyone enjoying reading comics on Zuda.