what is a “Rich Internet Application?”

March 29, 2003

Kevin Lynch posted last week about Flash applications that are “starting to appear.” However not everything done in Flash is a rich internet application, and it is a challenge to sift through these showase sites to find great examples. There is a fine line between dynamic content and a web application.

I’ve spent some time over the past week trying to understand my own definition of a “Rich Internet Application.” I discovered that in my mind I have mapped “Rich Internet Applications” to “good user interface design.” Perhaps I’ve been drinking too much Kool-Aid…

Macromedia writes that “Rich Internet Applications combine the functionality of desktop software applications with the broad reach and low-cost deployment of web applications