Variable Markup

Yesterday I attended the JeffNJoe MSDN .NET Tiki Hut Roadshow in Palm Beach.   Jeff and Joe presented Expression Web, Silverlight 1.0 and 1.1, and a mash-up using Virtual Earth.   By far, the most interesting topic was Silverlight, Microsoft’s new Rich Internet Application(RIA) cross browser, cross platform plug-in.  The 1.0 version available now, definitely looks and feels like Adobe Flash, however it has much improved video playback functionality including High Definition playback.  Beyond the use for video, I wouldn’t seriously consider using it for RIA applications on a major ecommerce site because of limitations to available controls, development language availability, and that it’s a 1.0 environment.   Beyond those issues, pervasive adoption of the plug-in is not there yet.  If you decided to utilize Silverlight, your site will probably be the first one that a consumer would be exposed to it, therefore they will have to download the 1.1 meg plug-in and go through the installation, even though Microsoft has made it very seamless and easy to do.

The 1.1 version of Silverlight due out sometime next year on the other hand shows a lot of promise.  Beyond the capabilities existing in 1.0, it is also expected to include support for many controls such as button, textbox, scrollbar, listbox, and checkbox which will bring the basic abilities up to the bare basics compared with Adobe Flex.  You’ll also see support for additional language support beyond javascript including C#, VB.Net, Python, and Ruby.

Three of the most interesting demo’s shown that retailers can relate to were live streaming video of the HSN channel, Silverlight Airlines travel booking, and a prototype  for viewing different home goods and furniture items in a room. 

The HSN live video siteis a great combination of high quality video and audio with great interactivity for looking at different product images, jumping to other products of interest, sharing the item with friends and the option to buy the product being shown.  It definitely looks like the interfaces we were dreaming about in interactive tv a decade ago that never materialized.  With Silverlight 1.0’s strong reliance on video capabilities, it makes me wonder how much Microsoft is betting on Silverlight for their interactive tv ambitions over the next few years. 

 Silverlight Airlines is a fictitious airline travel site which allows you to draw a line from city to city and drag start and end dates on a calendar to start your flight selection.  Once selected, it will then show you the available flights at the various possible times and the route they will take to get you to your destination. 

Telerik, an ISV which creates development controls for .Net, Silverlight and other environments created a prototype using their Cube control which shows a virtual living room and allows you to click on items in the room and it starts a cube spinning of various items you might want to see placed in the room.  This interface provides some great eye candy at first glance, although I have to question it’s usefulness in a real retailers site.   One of the biggest benefits of online commerce today is the broad selection of products on a site.  I don’t see how 6 options per placement is going to be a viable alternative to faceted search navigation and filtering when looking at many products.  For some reason, a hectohedron(100 sides) doesn’t seem like a user friendly way of selecting products.

The other demo shown that was probably more compelling than these was a site produced for the Orlando Magic by Lightmaker.   It was a full RIA interface for ecommerce which allowed you to pick your favorite Magic player on a light box sort of interface and then drill into the products related to that player.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a public site with the app, but I included the link above which has some screen shots.  I’ll send a note to Jeff and Joe and see if they can provide me the link to the public location. 

All in all, Microsoft is coming on strong with Silverlight and will be applying pressure on Adobe and their combination of Flash and Flex in the Adobe Integrated Runtime.  I am definitely looking forward to working with this technology and see what retailers do with these capabilities in the coming year. 

Please drop me a note or comment on this article if you are doing anything with Silverlight or plan to in the future.