One of the reasons why I love being an evangelist is figuring out how we get great projects done on our platform – this one has me particularly excited.  I’ve been leading the project for the last 6 or so months, coordinating between our great clients at Photobucket and our fantastic design partner, EffectiveUI.  Photobucket, the world’s largest photo website, is launching Photobucket Visual Search today, powered by Silverlight and Windows Live.

http://photobucket.com/visualsearch

From the very beginning, Photobucket recognized that images are almost always social – it’s why they became the defacto standard for image hosting on MySpace and other social networking sites. Photobucket is always looking for ways to make the social experience more rewarding – in this case, they turned to Microsoft for help.

So what does Photobucket Visual Search do?

At its most basic level, Photobucket Visual Search lets you search Photobucket, well, visually. Just type in the search term, and see the results flow over the page. But what if I want to see related images? Here, Visual Search starts to show its value. With a simple click of the related items pulldown, you see terms that are related to the current set of images.  A click lets you see a larger version of the image, but still allows you to move through the collection of images easily. What if I want to share these images I’ve found? This is where Photobucket Visual Search really shines. Because Photobucket decided to integrate Windows Live Messenger into the application, sharing an image with any of Windows Live Messenger’s 320+ million active users is as easy as one click.

Wrapping it all up

It’s really exciting for me to see so much effort finally launching – we’re really looking forward to the response of the community.  More than that, it’s also really exciting to see another major web presence adopt Silverlight and Windows Live Services.

If you’re thinking about a new RIA and want to discuss Silverlight, let me know by contacting me at william dot tschumy at microsoft dot com.  Finally, if you’re thinking about doing something social on any platform, be sure to check out dev.live.com – if you even think you might want to make your site social, live gives you lots of different options with almost no extra work.

Check out http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Jun09/06-16Photobucket.mspx for more!

UPDATE:  Check out http://blogs.msdn.com/angus_logan/archive/2009/06/19/photobucket-adds-sizzle-and-sharing-via-instant-messaging-to-photo-search.aspx Too!

In order to support Firefox 3, websites built using the Silverlight 1.0 Sivlerlight.js file must upgrade that file to the latest version. In addition to supporting Firefox 3, the latest version of the file also adds several new features including the ability to automatically refresh the browser once the user installs Silverlight. You can learn about all of the new features in the readme file.

If you have already updated your website to use the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Silverlight.js file or you instantiate Silverlight using the ASP.Net Silverlight control then no further action is needed. Otherwise, to obtain the latest version of Silverlight.js please visit the Silverlight.js MSDN Code Gallery Web site:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/silverlightjs

For most pages, the upgrade process will only require that you replace the current Silverlight.js file with the new version. However, the latest version of Silverlight.js removes several deprecated members from the file’s object model:

o Silverlight.ua

o Silverlight.available

o Silverlight.detectUserAgent

o Silverlight.supportedUserAgent

If your website uses any of these members then you can find workarounds in the readme file associated with this release.

You can also check out this blog post from my friend and colleague, Tim H.

Today, InXile launched the redesigned LineRider.com, exclusively powered by Silverlight2 and Windows Live Services.

Line Rider is a casual gaming site with between 1.5 & 2M Monthly Unique users.  In addition to the old, Flash based game, they have also just launched console versions of their game for the Xbox 360, Wii and PS3.  In Late May, they began a contest with McDonald’s, supported by a nation-wide television ad buy.  Check out the nationally broadcast commercial here.

WR DPE began working with Line Rider several months ago, converting application environment from LAMP to Windows 2008 / SQL Server 2008.  In late April, I was approached by Line Rider’s Director of Online Businesses to explore a Silverlight port because of usability problems inherent with the Flash version of the game.

Over the course of 2 weeks, we developed a scope of work that included substantially enhancing the social aspects of the game through integrating Windows Live Messenger, Contacts and LiveID.  You can now save your game

tracks locally or in the cloud, send those track to your friends via Live Messenger, and chat with friends while in the game.  Once we established scope, we engaged Cynergy Systems (Winners of the Phizzpop Design Challenge) to design and build the application.  This was a roughly 6 week engagement.

Line Rider, powered by Silverlight2 and Windows Live Services launched today!