Silverlight 1.0 is released (previously known as WPF/e) and next year 1.1 will be out – this new web presentation format is huge and here to stay. The development /design tools provided and the Silverlight Streaming service on Live.com really makes it feasible to quickly and cost effectively add video based services to existing products. Allthetopbananas.com is currently building a career related social network and video CVs will be an early release to feature. We will use Silverlight 1.0 and Silverlight Streaming on Live.com for the first release of this service. This will enable a custom branded video experience which is easy for our jobseekers to use.
More exciting for us is the user interface we aim to develop for recruiters to browse through the videos. Some of the latest and innovative user experiences seen in Vista or the iPhone are now feasible to be developed for Internet sites. I cannot wait to really maximize this technology to improve our products experience and functionality. Our designers are already working with the Expression Studio Tools experimenting with new interfaces to make job search easier and more enjoyable.
The MS Live.com platform was showcased in various presentations at Mix07. Since returning to the office on Wednesday we already have prototype versions of job results pinpointed on a map. Our development will focus on making the map view helpful to the user and easy.
The Live.com integration with Live ID, hotmail contacts, spaces and messenger are all valuable. We have thrown a great number of ideas around and can see that in the future we will make use of this. The biggest and most difficult issue is using Live ID verses our current authentication system. I don’t want to introduce a barrier for the user and creating a Live ID is a longer winded process than I want to force our users through, but the argument that it will reduce the barrier based on the popularity of hotmail is very strong. There is also the issue of migrating our existing users to Live ID. I expect that we will release a hybrid giving the user choice and review the user activity before going one way or the other – some of the potential services make it very worthwhile.
To wrap up – the introduction of Expression Studio and Silverlight is the start of an interface revolution of the web . I think comparable to the user experience shift of moving from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95! Allthetopbananas.com will soon have early enhancements released based on this technology. The services offered by the Live.com platform will enable some highly integrated and enjoyable experiences for users already familiar with Live services.
Finally it would have been great if Mix07 had included the latest MS Surface product for all the techy gadget mad to play with!
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