[agumonkey]

flash was adressing another side of that coin, presentation/appeal/multimedia

ajax was big but at best it meant slightly more dynamic business application, flash made only videos and freeform graphics ubiquitous (for better or worse)

[ungzd]

Multimedia died in late 90s. No one no longer wanted to read text in tiny unscrollable unsearchable rectangle with "real book-like" page flipping animation and colorful textured background. All these things looked garish and vulgar long before "web 2.0" and mass javascriptization.

Flash was only good for games, short animated movies and tolerable for videos and audio (before web video standards).

[anthk]

Eh, no. Bullshit. Computer encyclopedias like Encarta were huge back in the day.

If any, multimedia was HUGE in late 90's. You would have a CD-ROM for ANY content, hobby or knowledge branch.

And OFC things like Shockwave (and previously, Director) made them ubiquitous.