Microsoft Silverlight is an add-on that allows you to access video, graphics, animations, and applications through a web browser like Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Much like Flash, you download and install a small piece of software that gives your web browser the ability to understand content produced specifically for Silverlight.
Day by day, the web is evolving into a truly interactive, multimedia-enabled platform for delivering all types of information, and Silverlight is Microsoft’s effort to position itself directly in the middle. Sites like YouTube are only the beginning — new technologies like Silverlight, Flash, Apollo, AJAX … enough technical stuff … aim to bring you much more than just stop-and-go text in a browser.
Silverlight enables web developers to deliver video, HD video, quality graphics and animations, and flowing, intuitive applications through your web browser. For example, Major League Baseball may use Silverlight to put baseball games on mobile phones.
Search engines are at the heart of the web, pumping web surfers around from site to site. Microsoft is of course well-aware of this, and so Silverlight is built with search engines in mind. Silverlight content will be delivered in a machine readable format, which will make it discoverable to search engines and other automated systems.
Download Silverlight
Silverlight is available for download at Microsoft’s Silverlight site. Download the application run it, and then restart your web browser.
Further Reading
Web application blog Webware asks, “What is Silverlight, really?” Webware discusses Microsoft’s strategy for attracting developers to Silverlight.
Tech blogger Robert Scoble claims Microsoft rebooted the Web with Silverlight, discussing Silverlight as a direct move into territories where companies like Google are trying to outdo the software giant.
Old-school programmer David Coletta at The Joy of Flex thinks there’s a lot of Silverlight hype, and not enough information to make any solid conclusions at this time.
