You have about three to five seconds to capture a visitor's interest before they move on. 10 to 20 seconds is far too long for a Flash object to load if it is a critical part of your web page or message.
The speed with which a Flash object loads is dependent on a number of things including:
- The size and complexity of the Flash object. Generally the larger the file, the longer it will take to load.
- The speed of the server; the ability of the server to deliver all of the web page files including any flash objects
- The broadband speed of the service delivering the files to the viewer
About the only control you have is over the first two items. A smaller Flash file will load more quickly. A high-performance, low load server will deliver files faster.
In addition, what you experience might not be what others will experience. Try posting a link to the page here and you can get some additional comments on the content as well as other's download experiences.
I'm sure others will chime in with some other ideas.
These web sites have some good tips about creating Flash objects:
Compressing Flash movies and Flash banners
kirupa.com - Reducing File Size
Hope that helps!