Pownce on this

June 28, 2007 at 8:37 am · Filed under Beta, Social Networking, Applications

Anyone out there have a Pownce invite that they’d consider sharing? I’m dying to see what they’ve pulled together with AIR.

Reply to this post if you have one and I’ll be sure to contact you. Thanks! If I can scurry up an invite to something in return, let me know and I’ll try!

Don’t know about Pownce? Check it out…

UPDATE: I’ve gotten an invite, signed-up, and installed the AIR Desktop and will fiddle around and report back. The signup and installation process was simple and quick.

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Red Bull Flugtag online and off

June 21, 2007 at 9:22 am · Filed under Online Marketing, Social Networking, Games

I’m getting ready to head to Tennessee for Flugtag Nashville, the latest U.S. “flying day” put on by Red Bull. Terralever has been working on some cool interactive tie-ins to the event, and we fortunately need some boots on the ground to do some coordination. If you’re in Nashville on Saturday (23rd of June) stop by—it’s free! Directions and entry information is on the Flugtag USA site, on the page for the Nashville event.

The team has also updated the wildly popular Flugtag Game. It now features:

• Multiplayer support (Tournament style)
• A Chat window for Multiplayer games
• Three crafts to choose from
• Five Flugtag locations to choose from
• New crash sequences and in-flight antics

If you have previously installed the game on your MySpace page, it will be updated automatically to the new version. If you haven’t put it on your MySpace page, but are curious how to do so, just go to the game page—there is a button to install it right below the game.

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Microsoft: WPF/e = Silverlight

April 16, 2007 at 11:19 am · Filed under RIA, Video, User Interface, User Experience

Microsoft announced the public release name for the technology/plug-in previously known by its code name “WPF/e” (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere) today as “Silverlight.” Although Microsoft has preferred that the technology not be compared with Adobe’s (formerly Macromedia) ubiquitous Flash plug-in, it’s hard not to make the comparison. Both plug-ins leverage vector based graphics and scripting languages to allow the delivery of richer-than-HTML multimedia experiences, and both have a focus on the delivery of video content.

I worked at Microsoft last year for a few months prior to returning to my post at Terralever. While there, I participated in a program in which Microsoft brought in multimedia designers to put Silverlight through its paces. They were working on a version of the plug-in that was still in development and were working without documentation. Even with those limitations, the resulting demos did show promise in the hands of the highly qualified multimedia designers.

But, who would consider Silverlight over Flash? Here’s some thoughts on Silverlight:

• For designer-developers who are more fluent in JavaScript (or AJAX) Silverlight may be easier to transition to than Flash
• For RIA’s (Rich Internet Applications) that involve communication between an HTML page and multimedia content housed within it, Silverlight may prove to be a more seamless solution as the Silverlight object is a part of the DOM
• This is a v1 product for Microsoft, who usually starts firing on all cylinders around v3, and, Microsoft seem serious about its movement into this space
• Video is the hot topic on the web right now. Flash is currently able to stream a maximum of 576 lines (per Ars Technica) whereas video encoded with Microsoft’s VC-1 codec can be streamed at 720 lines. Silverlight also handles scaling video while it is being viewed beautifully.

Silverlight’s biggest hurdle? Gaining the mind share of multimedia designers—and doing so with a PC-only development ecosystem (Microsoft Expression).

The cross-browser plug-in is currently available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox on the PC as well as Safari and Firefox on the Macintosh.

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