Typical Flash files show fancy animations, menus, information or games. The problem is that the information is static ie doesn't change once written. Flash Remoting allows for the Flash file to be constantly in touch with the web server so that new information automatically appears in the Flash file. This is quite an impressive capability.

In the example above, when you click on a name or time, the flash file then communicates with the server by sending a request for information to a script on the server. This script then retrieves details (in this case from a database) and returns the results directly to the Flash file, which Flash then uses to show the results. The country flag image is also on the server not embedded within Flash itself. Note this is not using web services ie plain XML, so the data sent is in binary format which gives it a performance advantage especially when dealing with large data sets. I am not using LoadVars here either.

A practical use could be for:
- an online shopping service, where products/prices would all be constantly up to date
- showing a map of a yacht race, with images of yachts on the map in the correct location in real time
- a live sports scoreboard