Myspace: Flash Player 9 Plugin Prompt

Kind of nerdy, but I thought this was rather interesting. This afternoon, I logged into my MySpace account, and was given a prompt to download the latest Flash plugin.

Now, keep in mind – they were asking me to install the Flash 9 player. Which has been out for a total of like 20 days now. So far, it’s mostly been the Flash developers who have gottten then Flash 9 plugin – and myspace is prompting folks to get it? This will be interesting to watch.

Prior to nine, the latest and greatest version of the plugin was Flash 8. Usually, adoption rates for new plugins take about 9+ months, give or take. Anytime there’s a new Flash player, it takes a while before designers/developers build sites in the newest version, a while before regular users deceide to download the latest version. Right now, the penetration statistics for Flash Player 8 are at about 69% (compared to 94% for the Flash 7 player).

Given how many users myspace has, I wonder if we’ll see a huge wave of folks upgrading to the Flash 9 player. If millions are installing a plugin that’s only about a month old, this will really open up the doors for those who have been hesitant about publishing Flash 8 content.

It’s also interesting to note that the Flash 9 player isn’t yet included on the penetration stats page. This should be fun to watch.