My Takes From the Silverlight Firestarter Event

• Silverlight is pretty cool for doing interactive web apps.
  • I think they concentrated on Video too much on version one and I would have wanted the features in Silverlight 2.0 (WPF controls etc.) in 1.0 and video added later on. Comm’on, how many of us really set on developing another YouTube clone?
  • Leverages developers .NET and WPF knowledge for web apps. This is what I like most about Microsoft’s offering they have one basic platform that requires one set of basic skills which can later be applied to multiple platforms and kinds of applications.
• I hate the fact Silverlight 1.0 works with JavaScript codebehind.
• I hate JavaScript…

I think the most interesting session was Adam Kinney’s, who demonstrated the development process of his XBox Live! silverlight gadget. After getting some gamer tags from the audience and realizing that all would probably be offline as they’re in the event, one person had a “1 minute ago”… hmm…

And for other notes, as in any Microsoft event they have giveaways:

• I missed the Silverlight T-Shirts giveaway at the beginning of the event and when I came to the organizers later they sadly said that they only have Small size shirts left. If you haven’t shopped for clothes in the US, size Small is pretty much like Large… and they usually don’t have Small… I was expecting an XXL size shirt and got a small which is just my size so I’m happy 🙂
• Microsoft Research were giving out cool bags for filling a form. By the time I filled the form they were out of bags and I got a “Microsoft Research” rubber ball :\
• I almost got a book at one of the lectures
• As usual, I didn’t win anything at the raffles (I never get lucky in raffles)

When I was leaving the Silverlight event there was some Zune marketing\analysts\team\?? meeting in the next room.
Microsoft are planning a PR effort on Zune for Mother’s day and Christmas focusing on the wifi capabilities which are Zune’s differentiator.

Not convinced. But to be fare, I don’t really like the new iPod video or the shuffle… Nothing like my good old iPod Shuffle.