Oh, sure we can uninstall the toolbar – or can we? Is it not a permanent feature of windows (from Win1.0 to Windows 3000) to keep little momentos of any and all programs installed on a computer?

By the way, I also use the Google toolbar - it is lightweight and has no apparent effect on the performance of the computer. Also, it is easily customizable to get rid of their proprietary buttons (which are still leaps and bounds better than the junk that comes with installing any Yahoo! widgets (toolbar, messenger, mail, etc.)

Maybe all those writing in are wrong, maybe the Yahoo! Toolbar is a wonderful brilliant example of software engineering and we really should all have it. (Yeah, right!) But I still don’t want my MM installer adding this magically delicious piece of sh.. er. software to my computer.

Since I am the one installing the players, and I will actually use imaging software to copy my first computer to the others, I will install the players – this time.

PS – I have taken great pains to ensure my users are using Windows Media Player instead of Realplayer because of the harrassment that comes standard with Realplayer. I will do almost anything to keep it off my network.
(I know MS sucks, but since it comes with Windows anyway and for some uses it does the job – I will use it.)

Good questions. Thanks.

a) We have a lot of techniques for monitering distribution and install of the Flash Player. We are intensely focused on keeping it small, seamless and trustworthy. So we are indeed very concerned about the reaction we have seen to our partnership with Yahoo. We are watching the feedback, the download rates, etc and we have folks working on other designs of the page we will test . I think/hope we can improve the clarity of the page dramatically and defuse the situation.

b) We do want the relationship with Yahoo to be successfull. I don’t think that is a bad thing for us or the Flash community. Please note that Yahoo is probably the single biggest (in terms of broad use and of viewership) user of Flash technology in the world (FlashCom too!). And this partnership is not just about the distirbution of the toolbar, but advancing the use and distribution of the Flash Player. Y! is a respected company and one of the top few portals in the world. And I think they are building some incredible applications and content using Flash, that we think will help advance the overall ecosystem (and more of which will be public over the new year).

That said, Macromedia making some money from traffic to our website is also hopefully not an unreasonable thing to do (if we do it in reasonable ways). The fact is we invest enourmously in building and distributing the Flash Player and related technologies, and we give away the Flash Player for free. We have a nice business of products around that, but we want to actually invest far more in innovation, testing, tooling etc than we could without the partnership with Y!. I think over the next year you will see a lot of new innovation around the Flash Player and in the background this relationship will deserve some credit for this.

All of this said, we sure screwed up in the communications with the community upfront. I think we failed to convey upfront a few key points:

We aren’t including anything in the Flash Player installer and we aren’t now or ever planning to mess with the small, seamless install of the Flash Player. What we are doing is leveraging our website, and making an optional offer to the trivially small percent of folks who choose to install the Flash Player that way. And by doing this, we are advancing a partnership that will allow for dramatic improvements in the Flash Player and related technologies.

I hope this is at least somewhat helpful. Please feel free to contact me directly at dmendels@macromedia.com to continue the dialogue.

Regards,
David Mendels
Macromedia

First, the player FAQ w/Yahoo notes has been up for a couple weeks now- this deal has been active for more than just a few days. I’d suspect the first excerpt in question considered install/download data well before Thursday night’s Slashdotting, for the record. And yes- to my knowledge *installations* have gone up, not just traffic to the site to check out the offer. But I only have limited vision myself, just translating from my POV here.

Secondly, although I realize this can be taken as semantics (and is often confused in recent ‘blog/community postings), the Yahoo! toolbar is not actually ‘bundled’ with anything. It’s offered from the Macromedia website, to Win/IE users ONLY (if they don’t already have the toolbar installed), and is not part of the standalone installers themselves or the ActiveX ’silent’ update. Using the Detection Kit and ActiveX’s background mechanism will still serve up offer-free, silent player updates for site visitors- does this alleviate any of the concern for yourself/your clients? I’m honestly curious- specifics as to your own projects/clients would help to get the message straight back here internally, thanks.

Re: your second quote from the FAQ- although I can’t go into a lot of detail on the Yahoo partnership in general, the deal actually does mean quite a large deal of resources and focus on Flash, the Flash Player, and the Flash economy- and there’s a lot in progress on both sides that has yet to see the light of day. Sure, the initial messaging was not good, you’re dead to rights there. The FAQ (recently updated) isn’t necessarily a proactive statement either, but it’s been updated recently to cover some of the growing concerns. That’s how changes in the Player download area and experience are generally documented, for what it’s worth.

Opt-out is a key consideration- got it, thanks! Definitely a shared concern I’ve seen discussed a lot over the last couple of days.

best- Scott/Macromedia