I've been playing with Microsoft Popfly since early in its alpha test. It has gotten more and more stable and more and more capable as time went on; at this point it can sometimes produce reasonable mashups fairly quickly without crashing, although often what you get is not quite what you expected or hoped for. Popfly is based on Silverlight technology. Popfly has progressed to beta test and is now open to all. Popfly has progressed to beta test and is now open to all. This release about Popfly and Silverlight just came in from Microsoft’s PR firm: Good morning, Today, Microsoft is pleased to announce the public beta release of Popfly. Popfly is a tool built on Microsoft Silverlight, which provides a fun and easy way for anyone to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages and applications. Popfly provides anyone, even if they have no programming experience, with a simple way to create mashups without code and share on social networks like Windows Live Spaces and Facebook. Popfly enables users to: · Add some pizzazz to your Facebook profile, blog, or personal Web page by adding games, slideshows, your Halo 3 stats, and your eBay auctions. · Build a Web page for your club or organization like a soccer team that would include a schedule, photos and videos from past games, directions to upcoming matches, and more. · Leverage blocks from Popfly partners, such as Twitter, Facebook and Dapper, to drive awareness of and traffic to your site. Attendees at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit on October 17-19 in San Francisco will be able to get a first-hand look at Popfly and its new features. Changes to Popfly from the initial alpha release include: · Facebook integration – users can publish Popfly applications directly to Facebook · Gadgets – Popfly can create both Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets and Windows Live gadgets. · Even simpler user interface – tweaking helps you modify someone else’s mashup even more easily. For more information and to get started with Popfly today, please visit: www.popfly.com. Only one month after the launch of Silverlight 1.0, the number of partners participating in the Microsoft Silverlight Partner Initiative has already grown to more than 50 organizations, and over 40 customers have delivered Silverlight applications worldwide. To help even more organizations take advantage of Silverlight, Microsoft is announcing that Silverlight 1.0 is now available in 10 languages. To view the Microsoft press release from the Web 2.0 Summit, please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-18Web2dot0PR.mspx To see how O’Reilly is using Silverlight and Popfly at the Web 2.0 Summit, please visit www.popfly.ms/users/Team/web2summit.content. Software Development