This is a very common format of Flash with a revolving image, and pop-up text on the links which you may like.

Flash is a tool to help authors create movie type displays. You can illustrate the product, show it moving, add visual interest to your page, or whisper it quietly, show how clever you are as a website author.

It is fashionable to use Flash in an entrance tunnel. An entrance tunnel is a decorative display before you are allowed to see the homepage. Many award winners go this way. Try:
http://www.Disney.com
http://www.coca-cola.com/
http://www.Barney.com
http://www.Gucci.com
http://www.Turbonium.com
http://www.Eventstyle.com

Many of the exciting Flash gimmicks are now widely used, and you may think that your site will look exactly like all the other websites. You will need to figure a way to build the company image into the movie, and to illustrate your product.

Flash Problems
There are potential problems in designing a good Flash entrance tunnel:

• large file size
  
• difficulty in avoid
  
• slow loading
  
• not contributing to the sales message
  
• needing special run-time add-ons
  
• hostile to search engines
  
• need alternative navigation

Large File Size
The flash program can be as small or large as you decide - just like the images you use. The Roger Minost one above is just 12K which is quite reasonable.

Slow to Load
Often it takes a long time to load the flash code, particularly at peak hours of the day. The trick here is to have some regular HTML text come up instantly, and then to have an opening sequence which is a small file - to keep the visitors interested. And finally to have the movie itself, and perhaps this could be loaded in stages.

The opening display could tell the name and product and give an opportunity to skip the Flash and go straight to the homepage. We have done this on Roger Minost's website
http://www.rogerminost.co.uk
You will immediately see the top line with the Skip Intro message, then the flash starts to run. You would have to scroll down to see the text for the keywords and a full set of links to keypages in the website for the electronically under-privileged which are down below the fold.

Contribute to the sales message
It is always recommended that you should only have images that contribute to the discussion. Similarly, the flash should promote and enhance your unique sales proposition. Why should people come to you just to see a movie, when they could see a better one on Disney or CocaCola.

Need special run-time files
Quite typically you get a pop-up message that invites you to download the latest version of Flash. Pop-ups are a nuisance anyway, but in fact 96% (estimated) of visitors have some form of Flash run time add-ons already, supplied with their browser. If they decide they want to download the latest version then this probably would take only a couple of minutes.

Hostile to search engines
This one is more serious. Most of the flash entrance tunnels do not make any concession to the search engine robots, and they would not be able to get into the site at all.

Flash is just like an image. There is no reason why you should not have all the search engine stuff in there as well. All you have to do is to remember to do it. We recken the Roger Minost site (above) does it right. We have a template here for you.

Downloading Flash movies
There is a problem if you want to download, for whatever reason, a page which contains Flash. The normal right-click or File | save-as function is sometimes greyed out.
But if you have seen the website on your screen then it is all someplace in your PC cache which is normally Windows | Temporary Internet Files. You can arrange these into website order if you wish and then copy them to wherever on your hard disk.
They are all in one level of directory which you can fix, and when you copy the files there are funny characters and numbers in the names which you can take out.

Here are some other examples, emphasing some of the problems:

http://www.india.ford.com
- if you can bear to wait a long time the entrance tunnel is excellent. If you want the facts about Ford in India then you have to dig deep, put up with distractions, read very small print. They say they won a website award. If they did it was not for usability

http://www.rayoflight.net
- absolutely beautiful, but with the commercial purpose completely concealed.

http://www.AdventFunds.co.uk
- takes a long time to build into a picture, but when that is done, there is a lot of cunning work on the links.

http://www.moment.ru
Long and tedious entrance tunnel, but in the background the images are loading. Very clever is the way the flash program automatically adjusts to fill the display screen you happen to be using.

http://www.paritywebacademy.com/
In some ways the worst of all strategies. There is an entrance tunnel to the entrance tunnel. Even the first entrance tunnel takes time to load and then you have to decide which of the four options to take. Decisions, Decisions!

 
The Arguments against Flash
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html is from Jakob Nielsen who is one of the industry gurus. He goes a bit over the top but then he has always been one for calling a spade a bloody shovel.
Note also the website - no frills, no formatting, if the content doesn't sell to you then he is obviously addressing a different audience!