He's gone and he might not be coming back.

We’ve been a “Flash Shop” since inception. This hasn’t been because we are inherently about Flash. It’s been because the web was inherently about Flash.

We’re about delivering brand communications to consumers for our clients. For the past 7-10 years, that has meant “rich, brand experiences” in Flash. Before that, it was delivering these types of experiences on CD-ROM, where the limits of bandwidth weren’t an issue.

In the past several weeks we’ve seen a monumental changing of the guard with regards to the web and Flash’s place in it. I’m not a technologist and I don’t pretend to know a whole lot about the details that I see a lot of developers Tweeting and debating.

It was maybe six or nine months ago that I began noticing that Brian Kadar was starting to poo-poo Flash in favor of “Web 2.0”. We’d been resisting a transition for the last couple of years. This is a kid who has an authentic Mets jersey with “FLASH” on top of the number 83.

Now a veteran, Kadar programmed http://demos.freedomandpartners.com/pearljamtengame about a year ago. He was a snot-nosed punk from Queens, just graduated from the University of Delaware, when he interned with us and whipped together http://demos.freedomandpartners.com/calamity with Shea Gonyo about five years ago.

I asked Shea what he thought. His response was kind of like, “Yeah, dude.” Shea? He just came off http://demos.freedomandpartners.com/freedomandpartners_v1/. He’s one of the premier veteran ActionScript developers in the world.

I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t understand it. How can you do what Flash does in HTML? C’mon. Why would you want HTML-like design and experience when you can have Flash? It didn’t make any sense.

But slowly it started dawning on me. I have an iPhone. I got one the first week the first generation came out. I love it. Obviously. Anyway, I never missed Flash on the phone and again, wasn’t buying into the whole “Flash is dying” thing. However, over the past couple of months, I have started missing Flash on the phone. I’ve been on the web more and more.

Then, while I was at a biz dev lunch near Rockefeller Center, I started seeing the Tweets during the iPad presentation. No Flash. He’s making a big deal of it. HTML5. What? I think I’ll remember that lunch like I remember where I was when John Belushi died.

For now, I can’t recommend doing web-based work in Flash. That is, unless our clients understand the limitations they are placing on their audience. Or unless they want to pay for “both”.

For years, we used to have to defend Flash, “97% of browsers have Flash!”

Now, we have to let our clients know that we’re looking at 50-50% at best.

We’re about delivering brand communications to consumers. We can’t leave 50% of them out.