This is a tricky question to put in layman’s terms, as each evolution of the Internet develops there are ever more complex solution’s to allow for more intuitive and a more enjoyable user experience.
Flash has now become a ‘house hold’ name, but in the past, has always been focused around design and designers.
Then came the next ‘house hold’ name Web 2.0 (although not quite as well known). This was essentially not a new technology but rather driven by a need for a better experience. The major improvement was pages that acted more like desktop applications, in that the page did not update or refresh every time you clicked a link or entered some data in a form field. I think Google’s ‘Gmail’ were one of the more noticeable pioneers in using this technique.
The technology behind this was termed AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and leveraged extra functionality derived from a much older but very standardised language called JavaScript. This is actually very similar in its structure to Actionscript, which is the language behind Flash. AJAX won favours because it allowed efficient data transfer to servers without page refresh and also allowed a certain amount of ‘cool’ interactivity, creating more movement within a web page without even using Flash.
In the background, Adobe were listening to their users and were working on an overall framework of technologies that allowed the existing community of developers and designers the freedom to utilize their skills and allow them to build not only the usual applications they were used to but also to be empowered to build new types of application not easily possible before.
