The web can be a mighty static place. A place with long white and black documents, occasionally with a blue link or two. Or, it can be Flashed. Macromedia Flash is in essence, a vector graphics technology for the web.
Vectors are mathematical curves and lines, and are thus scalable.
Using Flash, you can animate these vectors, play sound and music, and combine it with images. And with the latest Flash 4 player, the automatic installation is so smooth that the plug-in issue should no longer be a reason not to use Flash. The most important features in Flash v. 4 Flash has been a web multimedia technology ever since version 2. But the web is more than multimedia, and Macromedia has realised this. So in Flash 4, there are some important landmarks.