Popfly and Visual Studio 2008

Greetings,

Today I saw something that I thought was incredibly interesting.
Visual Studio 2008 is supposedly going to have a Popfly tie-in called "Popfly Explorer". If this is what it sounds like, I am SUPER excited. In fact, I haven't seen really any other blogs mention this. I think this will add a lot more excitement around Popfly and encourage even MORE mashup components. This is like taking webparts and putting them on 'roids (that's Steroids).

The full article is here.

The fact that this is being included in VS 2008 is nudging me towards adding another section in the final chapter of my book. Check out the comments on it thus far in the nice little Silverlight Streaming application in the upper right corner. Oh yeah, and the final chapter has a walkthrough related to Silverlight Streaming.

Popfly info and some humor

1. Yesterday, Microsoft announced that Popfly has officially gone Beta. In conjunction with this, the invitation approach has been removed, and you only need a Windows Live ID to use Popfly. In celebration of this, a contest for creating Popfly creations has been announced. Personally, I have been using Popfly since about May or June and I'm pretty excited about the potential surrounding it. In addition, I think it is a great tool to show to individuals when they ask about Silverlight.
2. Dave Bost has posted the Buck Foley Speech from the IndyTechFest. Personally, I found this to be a refreshingly humorous opening to a technical event. Great Job Buck!
3. Don't forget to sign up for the FREE Ebook Raffle!

Lastly, this blog feels like it has been a spam machine as of late. Once the "Silverlight 1.1 in Action" book is completed, I promise I will be posting some more valuable content. Thanks for reading, I sincerely appreciate it.