1. Web animation
Brad Hurley

2. Uses of animation
Within the realm of website design, animation can be applied to create a range of visual effects that catch the attention of the person browsing the site, while giving it a more lively and busy feel.
These animations can be used to present information, promote a product, or even just to entertain the viewer by making the site more interactive, improving the overall quality of the site, allowing for some visually appealing results.
Here are a few examples

3. Examples of animation within web design

4. History of animation timeline
Hand Drawn (Cel) Flip Book GIF DHTML Java Applet

5. Digital animation - Vector
Vector animation is a method of animation in which the art or motion is controlled by vectors rather than pixels. Vector graphics are defined by a start and an end point, and allows for smooth animation by creating a simple or complex path, and allowing movement of objects through the path

6. Digital animation - compression
Compressing animated files helps to create a reasonable file size that doesn’t take up too much space on a drive. This can usually be done through exporting the video and selecting the format, bitrate, and resolution, as well as adjusting the keyframe, and framerate.
For video selecting encoding mode and editing the audio options can also help.

7. Web animation software
Flash
Swish
Amara
After effects
Director
Scratch

8. Web animation players
Flash Player
Shockwave
Real player
QuickTime