If you’re fairly new to writing for online ads you may be wondering what are all the technical things flash can do. The simple answer is that whatever idea you have, it can probably be done in flash. Crashing an asteroid into a house. Breaking open a virtual pinata. Picking door number 3 with a surprise behind it. So don’t let that limit your creativity.

It’s probably easy to say what flash can’t do (and what our flash ads that run in our testing environment can’t do).

1. No expandables (right now).
2. Don’t use lots of different photos as it will eventually make the file size too big.
3. No “real” in-banner video. If you see a clip you love, it can be faked by taking several frames from the video and running them together. It’s got to be a really short clip though.
4. Some complex dynamic stuff (for right now) Like knowing you’ve searched for airline tickets to Miami and it is currently -18 degrees in your neighborhood.

Keep in mind:
1. Complexity just for complexity’s sake does not make an ad banner interesting.
2. Intuitive, easy interaction with a mouseover tends to perform the best.

For examples of neat-o things designers can create under 40K, check out these flash examples.