For my first blog, I have two websites that use Flash in different ways.

The first website does not use Flash as its main format. Instead, it has found an interesting usage for Flash that I found to be of importance. The Website is the offical site of author Chuck Palahniuk, whom most people know through the film adaptation of his novel, Fight Club.

http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/workshop/chucks-essays-2008-25

I would assume that most people in this class are familiar with Napster, and the RIAA's lawsuit against people downloading music for free. The Internet and the ease at which media of entertainment are available create hassles and conundrums for copyrights. The webmaster of ChuckPalahniuk.net, however, found an innovative way to ensure the copyright nature certain essays written by Palahniuk featured on the site.

By having the essay displayed in a Flash format, it secures the document. Highlighting and copying do not work. Saving the entire web page does not work. Trying to print the document will only print the small bit shown on screen. You are left to simply scroll through the Flash document, read the article, and not to maintain a copy for yourself.

The second Website I explored has its entire interface in Flash.

http://www.pandora.com

Pandora is an Internet Radio created by the Music Genome Project, which was founded by Tim Westergren. The Project seeks to catalogue all of the music in the world by its various attributes: rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, singing style, syncopation, et al.

Pandora works by the User inputting the name of an Artist, Song or Composer into the search field. Pandora is then able to use that input as a basis for recommendations to the listener. Obviously, for these purposes, more popular artists are more easily found than, for example, Russian Pagan Metal or Speed Folk. However, the Project has been able to categorize an enormous selection of music, and Pandora Radio is an excellent tool to find new music. The Radio itself is free to use, with personalizations of your own select stations.

http://www.pandora.com/corporate/

Allow Pandora to speak for itself. I encourage you to explore the site, as it will undoubtedly lead you to new discoveries of musical artists and/or stylings.