Friday, May 29, 2009

Silverlight 3 keeps the heat on Flash


Silverlight
, Microsoft's competing technology to Adobe's Flash is ratcheting up soon.

In this piece, I mentioned that I had been using the Silverlight 3 Beta client with Windows 7 RC (along side Flash).
At least on this 'test notebook', no issues to report.

Today came word from ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley that Silverlight 3.0 will go final on July 10th.

Rich Media, as it's been called, whether it be Flash or Silverlight, has been an issue for the SEO community although Google has addressed it directly with a partnering of sorts with Adobe.

Most SEO companies are still advising clients to limit the animations, videos etc. in these formats on their primary landing pages so that search engine bots have an easier time picking up the important and relevant content.

On the other hand, the newer website technologies are providing platforms for not only 'fancy presentations' but easier site navigation and just more content in a smaller space.

Still a touchy one for most small webmasters.  On the other hand, take a look at many major retailers (and many others) and you will notice an ongoing evolution embracing rich media for product demos and more.