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Microsoft's Silverlight plugin will give Adobe Flash new competition |
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Written by Joe Rinehart, Internet Marketing & SEO Consultant
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Monday, 28 January 2008 |
I enjoyed a surprise visit today from an old friend Andrew Pardoe who I've known since the late 80's early 90's when he was working on his undergraduate degree at Kent State University. Andrew or AP as his old friends call him has been working at One Microsoft Way, in Redmond Washington for about a decade. As it turns out he is also now the program manager for the Microsoft's new Silverlight multimedia software which for the lack of a better description of anything that currently exists I'll compare to Adobes Flash. Microsoft recently revamped their web site using the Silverlight software which got my attention.
Silverlight includes 720p high-definition video which can be streamed from about any type of Internet connection. Andrew demonstrated some of the features to me and I've seen eye candy before, but this has some icing on the cake features. I guess I get turned on over the simple things and when I saw the web pages flipping like the pages of a book, it made a simple concept look like a complex motion picture movie production.
Being a FreeBSD UNIX geek myself, I'm normally not endorsing Microsoft software other than informing people to keep it up to date. Open source and OS compatibility are the type of programs I usually focus on.
Silverlight is a cross-platform multimedia program which also got my attention! Windows of course is expected, but to see compatibility for the Mac OS and read about future plans for UNIX/Linux are quite impressive.
AP and I discussed Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the value of text strings and he was quick to point out that Silverlight is very SEO compatible. It's really amazing how many SEO experts do not know what an ASCII chart is which leads to the difference between an upper case letter and a lowercase one. The key is as with most software that has the features to include text descriptions is that the author must implement them. Too often they worry about the eye candy effect and forgot the value of good old fashion electronic marketing much less coding for handicapped accessibility. I've always told people that if they wrote web pages for blind users who are dependant on speech synthesis to read it off to them, they'd do great in the search engines!. Microsoft hit a home run as far as I'm concerned by having the ability for the developers to implement SEO features rolled out since public release day one!
To learn more about Silverlight you should visit URL:
http://silverlight.net/
I downloaded the software using my Mac Powerbook as easily as I would expect any Mac software to install, restarted my Firefox and went back to check out all the available demo sites. I got a real kick out of the "Share the Love from the Silverlight Team" Valentines Day card interactive designer considering my birthday is Valentines Day and My friend Andrew Pardoe is the program manager of the Silverlight team ;)
Just for giggles, I also loaded up my Safari browser and noticed the plugin worked fine in it too. So once the plugin is installed on your computer, it should work in any of your major browsers.
I asked Andrew before he left my house to visit his parents in Cleveland if he'd mind if I wrote a little something about our Sliverlight review and if I bragged about knowing him, since I always like to boost about my technology friends, clients, peers, etc... AP, should have never said he wouldn't mind because I'm now a converted Microsoft Silverlight user and I have to explain that to all my UNIX friends.... ahhh, I guess I just did :)
I sincerely thank Andrew (and the Silverlight team) for the great Valentines Day Birthday gift this year!
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 29 July 2008 )
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