All About - AdNerd on the go

Mix07 is over. I am a satisfied visitor. Not only because of the terrific service the (Belgian) Microsoft team treated us with, but the conference, the keynotes and the stuff I learned were also great. I am a rather kinda sceptic guy, yet this time I think a lot of interesting stuff has been told and there are a lot of take-a-longs for this trip.

Time for a sum up.

Keynotes of Ray Ozzie, Scott Guthrie and Robert Bach

• Have a look at the Ozzie & Guthrie keynote here (stream for WMP)
• The most interesting parts: Silverlight demos were great. The possibilities the new technology offers is comparable to what you can do with flash and webservices/flex. However having a strong link with the Expression Suite and the developer’s trusted Visual Studio makes it a timesaver (or so I have been told) because of the use of the new XAML-language offering the possibility for designers and developers to work better and more integrated together on complex projects such as the ones in the demos.
• The demos:
  Netflix: Netflix offers a streaming video on demand service (incredibly fast streaming capabilities and interactive tools like ratings , what others also watched etc).
  MLB: Major League of Baseball offers internet pay-channels where you can watch all games and in the meanwhile chat about the program, receive more detailed info about the game and players etc. Comparable to what Joost partially offers.
  CBS: The CBS Television Stations were looking for a new and interesting way to let people consume and share media online. With Silverlight a sharing and uploading youtube-kinda tool (but much neater in design) was created.
  BBC: BBC Radio made a demo in which they created an online playground with all the footage they made on the festivals (interviews, videos, pictures etc). Have a look at the search and the several drag and drop functionalities, that’s pretty cool.
• Scott also showed how using the Expression and Visual Studio tools made it very easy to make the airlines service demo. I have to admit: this was pretty impressive and looked very easy to do.
• The Windows Live platform offers a wide range of possible interactions. For a little cost (under 1 million unique users a month - which never happens in Belgium - you pay nothing!) the API’s of the contacts, the virtual earth, the spaces, … makes it possible to use your users tools they use in every day’s live.