The Plugin Perdicament

As a webmaster, there are two things used as a litmus test as to whether or not i can incorporate something into a web site: 1) How many hours will it take to get the "thing" integrated into a web page. 2) Once i get the "thing" into a web page, will at least 95% of the viewing audience be able to use it without any browser issues?

With all of the Big 3 technologies, embedding animation, audio and video into a web page, or integrating the content into a web site requires a tremendous amount of "learning" -- In other words, each of these technoogies has a 900 page users guide explaining how to use the technology. Actually embeddint he player into a web page is next to impossible. And most importantly, after all the work that goes into getting the media into a web page, you still run a huge risk of preventing nearly half of your audience because they do not have the proper software to view the media. So what ends up happening is that you pawn off a number of questions to your audience in the form of:

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