Mini cars making it big.

September 1, 2001 12:55 PM

Mini cars making it big. As an owner of a vintage scooter, I can appreciate the affection these folks have for their cars.

I also wanted to link this as a nice example of how MSNBC has been using flash presentations in their stories.
posted by o2b (8 comments total)

Interesting article, and perhaps more importantly, and interesting use of Flash. When reading the original post, I expected to see a bunch of whiz bang moving things. Instead, I was treated to an elegant Flash "media player" - I especially like the lines in the "loading bar" which indicate where the transitions between the images take place.

However, as this takes off, and as broadband makes full motion video more accessible, I fear it will deal a blow to textual content on the web. An in depth article is worth a thousand of these Flash doodads. That's something I fear many web users don't understand.
posted by aladfar at 1:06 PM on September 1, 2001

i've always liked the little cars - especially the messerschmitts. on a recent trip to berlin i fell in love with the smart car (formally know as the swatch car) which we won't get in the us for another couple years.

p.s. i've got two lambrettas myself.
posted by cheesebot at 1:40 PM on September 1, 2001

I do beleive Urkel drove an Isetta.
posted by tomorama at 1:55 PM on September 1, 2001

Yeah, like Aladfar I was expecting to have a Flash animation take over my screen and immediately start blaring out some overproduced wad of pseudo-content. This, surprisingly, actually added something to the presentation of the article.

I think it's premature to forecast the death of text on the Web, though. People who want to passively watch news unfold in front of them are going to sit in front of the TV, not boot up a computer, head to a Web page, select a story and wait for a Flash animation to load. There are going to be places where Flash is an obvious choice (the small deluge of strange music videos we've been seeing since All Your Base came around, for instance), and places like this where there's some overlap between what text can provide and what a few pictures and sounds can provide, but I don't think we're going to see an all-moving, all-talking Web anytime soon.
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 2:19 PM on September 1, 2001

and a little Fiat 500 went by and went WEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
posted by machaus at 2:55 PM on September 1, 2001

Corbin Motors is making some swell little cars these days.
posted by MegoSteve at 5:39 PM on September 1, 2001

What an elegant way to incorporate something that can often be distracting and annoying.

L. Fitz, I agree with you - but I still know a lot of people (mostly a generation older, but some younger) who do treat the computer like a fancy TV. I wonder if they actuall feel more comfortable "watching" a webpage rather than struggling to interact with it. (Not that it's really much of a struggle but that's just from my perspective - I know for some people it's quite confusing.)
posted by mjane at 6:06 PM on September 1, 2001

Well, what I found interesting here is that they're using both text and moving images. It starts off with the first Flash piece, then you read some text; as you scroll down you see another Flash thing waiting for you. I think that's a good use of the web as it's something you can't do on TV or in print.

And, "sugly" is a great name for a car. Or anything, for that matter.
posted by D at 6:52 PM on September 1, 2001