By now it is clear - the iPad is coming and it is coming without Flash. For mobile ads this, it would seem, would be devastating. Or is it? For SEO, lack of flash is not a big problem, writes SEO company LoveClients.
“Flash remains 100% non-searchable. If you embed your content in flash, you not only cannot be properly indexed by Google, but you’re increasingly going to miss out on a ton of mobile traffic coming your way, and now on future search traffic from the iPad.
"If you build a fall-back site for iPhone/iPad/non-flash users, great, but that’s double the development costs and time, and requires you to update across two platforms.”
While Flash is useful for some things, LoveClients concludes, the fact that it’s not on the iPad is an important harbinger for where search and internet marketing are going in the future.
Also there are signs that some brands are moving away from Flash - in no small part due to Apple. Virgin America, for example, recently dropped Flash from its webite in order to be able to run on the iPhone and other handhelds, it said (via Electronista).
Publishers Woes
The biggest issue, however, lies with publishers which are bemoaning the lack of Flash to power interactive features for their digital products. (via MSNBC). “Apple has yet to reach a consensus with Adobe over Flash and Air on the iPad. With several tablets coming this year, publishers won't be able to code once and publish anywhere because Apple isn't going to allow Flash on iPads and iPhones any time soon.”
Such dithering - or deliberate strategy as the case may be - leaves publishers in limbo over their digital strategies.
Moving Forward
Some companies such as Conde Nast are moving forward anyway. The company recently announced that the first versions of magazine that will be readied for the iPad are Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour (via the New York Times).
Condé Nast plans to test different prices, types of advertising and approaches to digitizing the magazines for several months before wrapping up the experiment in the fall, the Times said. “We need to know a little bit more about what kind of a product we can make, how consumers will respond to it, what the distribution system will be,” said Thomas J. Wallace, editorial director of Condé Nast.
The Wall Street Journal, as well, is working on an iPad app. CEO Rupert Murdoch said the paper has been allowed to actually work on the device. “It’s under padlock and key. The key is turned by Apple every night," he said in response to a question. "But we will be on that with The Wall Street Journal."
