FLASH

April 21, 2008 5:37 PM

Where do I find FLASH programmers, preferably offshore (AKA cheaper)?

I need a FLASH/Webpage programmer for my planed start up. Since it is not an internet start up the web page needed is not a tremendous amount of work. In another Metafiler question someone posted: etsy.com where people can post handcrafted jobs and people bet on it.

Does something like this exists for FLASH/Website programmers?

posted by yoyo_nyc to computers & internet (6 comments total)

eLance. I'll reserve my words about a) outsourcing this kind of work b) Flash/FLASH, but perhaps others will not.
posted by tmcw at 5:57 PM on April 21

You could call your local consulting companies and see if they want a small project - if they have people waiting for work they may take it if external consultants are between gigs. If your organization has a particularly good community profile they may take the business at a loss to open up a working relationship with you; the bigger ones have the option of farming it out to their smaller offices and may take it on. Local doesn't always mean expensive, even in NYC. Consulting departments hate having their resources sitting/hanging around the office and your timing may be right. Calling the local also avoids you facing the moral issue of sending your neighbors job, and your city, state, or country's tax base overseas.

By outsourcing overseas you are very likely to take a hit on the quality of delivery and support you get Ask the IT guys, not the marketing guys if their off-shore resources are any good and remember marketing only says "no" when they say "no problem".
posted by Deep Dish at 6:27 PM on April 21

Since it is not an internet start up the web page needed is not a tremendous amount of work.

The first part of your statement has nothing to do with the second part.

Where do I find FLASH programmers

As I've said previously, step away from the technology. Focus on what you actually you want the set of pages to do and look like. Let your web designers figure out how to deliver.

Offshoring isn't necessarily cheaper, particularly if you are unfamiliar with web development as well as your developers' local culture. People who have successful experiences with offshoring have generally managed local people doing a similar job previously.

Look for someone local who can help walk you through the process of developing your web presence. Develop a budget ahead of time, and be up front about the constraints you need to work within. Once you've had local success, consider offshoring. Premature optimization often leads to failure.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:13 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

Yeah. You are the type of client that eLance, Rent-A-Coder, et al were designed for.

Good luck.
posted by ook at 9:41 PM on April 21

I design and develop Flash apps/pretty stuff, and I've been hired a couple of times to quickly save Flash-based projects which were attempted to be developed in the way you are asking about and went awry. I'm not cheap (tho I am, ironically, offshore). Due to blind alleys and doubling back, I suspect more money was spent on the cheap developers than it would have cost to hire me or someone else good in the first place. So to me it didn't look like a cost-effective process even before you factor in the change of developers, and my clients were understandably rattled because they didn't know whether their stuff would work by launch. That's great for me because I get to make it work and get the happy and relieved client, but I still wouldn't really wish that on anyone.

That being said, 1. there are also expensive developers who can't deliver the goods, and 2. if you can find someone impartial to recommend a bargain company that they had a good experience with producing something similar to yours*, there is no reason not to go for it.

Some advice: your budget will live or die by the quality of the specification you produce and the clarity of your communication, so to save money, focus on getting that tightened up a little bit. If there isn't a technical person who is already part of your project who can specify and define exactly what you need, try to seek someone out: anything reasonable that you pay a technical acquaintance to make an accurate spec and check in from time to time and monitor its execution is likely to be less that it will cost you to develop with an "emerging" spec with someone who can't sit down across a table from you. I would say that the fact that more technology-oriented startups usually have someone like that on staff means that development for them is likely to be more straightforward, not less.

Something else to consider is that there are also places in the US where development is cheaper -- you don't necessarily have to go offshore in order to get better-than-nyc rates.

* which means, UI which connects with a database.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 2:55 AM on April 22

YTMS is 100% correct about having a DETAILED and COMPLETE specification of what you want.

This is too vague: "Picture 1 flys in from left, logo flys in from top. Then pay the audio track. When a user clicks on the button, go to state 2." Where did this button come from? Should it fly fast or slow? What if the state behind it isn't loaded yet? (exception case / edge case). What if the user never clicks? Is there a way to toggle the sound on or off.

You won't be able to art direct this project from 5,000 miles away. Or at least not cheaply.

Also, you will need to have all assets ready for the developer. An eLance developer will probably not be a graphic designer, so any images you have will need to be cropped and color corrected already, logos will need to be correctly sized and punched on the right background colors, video will need to be compressed (though a flash dev shop might be able re-encode this for you... depends). Layouts should also already be designed (how far up from the bottom is that text? Should we left align this paragraph and leave a ragged edge or do it justified?)... Letting a college student from Romania, India, or Indonesia help you make all of these decisions will result in your not being happy with the outcome.

Another option is to get a local company to make you static page(s). The pages could still include images, video, and audio. Not sure that this will satisfy your requirements. But your first step is creating the requirements. Find an example that does some of what you want and start there.
posted by zpousman at 8:12 AM on April 22