News Articles & Blog
Silverlight 2
-posted by Paul on
August 20, 2008
The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics finished in spectacular fashion, as billions of viewers watched the pinnacle of athletic achievement, on multiple mediums across the globe. Audiences were captivated by stunning upsets, photo finishes and unparalleled firework displays. All the while, being somewhat oblivious to a competition of similar magnitude. A battle between media giants, propriety technology, and advertising space - at the center, Microsoft's Silverlight 2.
Microsoft's Silverlight is a light weight web browser plug-in that provides for a rich user interface. Many of Silverlight's features are geared towards the display of motion graphics, animations and video. Silverlight is programmable, and is most often implemented through an interactive display. This technology provides virtually the same services as the popular Flash Media Player.
The growth of Silverlight represents a significant challenge to Adobe, whose Flash Media Player, has for years, been the industry standard for interactive online media players. Adobe Flash is estimated to be installed on roughly 80% of the world's computers. Silverlight has been rapidly closing this gap since NBC decided to provide over 2,200 hours of Olympic video through Silverlight on NBCOlympics.com.
The emerging prominence of Silverlight, has had market implications even before the Olympics. Prior to the games, Google subsidiary, DoubleClick, announced that it would be supporting ads powered by Silverlight. A move that arguably made Google the industry leader in Silverlight advertising, a considerable advancement, considering that Microsoft has yet to implement Silverlight as a significant commercial advertising medium. Microsoft's own Mojave Experiment website was initially released using Flash technology which was perhaps a testament to the company's faith in Silverlight at the time? Despite any lingering questions, DoubleClick's utilization of Silverlight will perhaps ultimately benefit Microsoft by further propelling Silverlight technology into the mainstream.
Silverlight reached millions of users over the course of the Olympics through ads via DoubleClick, and live video at NBCOlympics.com. This mass exposure has had an enormous impact on the market thus far. Adobe is scrambling to keep pace with Silverlight's growth, and companies such as Google are eager to find ways to utilize it to enhance user experiences.