Lighting Up Communities With Silverlight

As you know, The Phoenix Suns launched Planet Orange, the team’s KickApps powered community, in November. The site uses Microsoft Silverlight technology to power both editorial and user-generated video. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET–based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.

Video is a core component of social media and a very effective means of driving audience engagement–we call it one of the four building blocks of social media. Many affiliates are successfully combining professionally produced editorial video content with UGC. This integrated experience encourages participation and engagement by an otherwise ’static’ audience. The next step for publishers is to deliver videos using high quality HD, often requiring a DRM solution.

Microsoft’s entry into this space gives publishers another option to consider. In our efforts to continually lower the barriers to entry for publishers to be successful with social media, we’ve joined the Silverlight Partner Initiative (look for KickApps under Solution Providers) to explore deeper levels of integration for clients who choose to adopt Silverlight.

So, if you’ve decided to deploy Silverlight on your site, it’s easier than ever to integrate it into your KickApps powered community!