Are Microsoft bringing the guiding light?

The launch of Microsoft's Silverlight (MS's competitor to Macromedia Flash), earlier this year, is likely to prove to be a very significant landmark in the future of the web.

There has been much discussion within our studio about use of the 'emerging' internet technologies over recent months. We've dabbled with AJAX in some recent projects, but the overwhelming feeling is that with (x)HTML and web browser technology we're doing something with tools that the tools were never designed to do.

Rockford Lhotka, US-based MS technology expert recently posted The Web is Dead on http://mcpmag.com/, which as a statement I can't say I agree with entirely, however the potential importance of Silverlight to develop deep and rich user experiences is highlighted in his article. Version 1.1 of Silverlight in particular will be of great interest to the MS development community, being built upon the MS .NET framework - meaning we, as .NET developers can continue to work with the technologies that we have spent a lot of time developing thorough knowledge of (and love)!

What do the users want?

In a very interesting article, The Register/Rackspace discuss the findings of "What makes the perfect website". It makes for good reading, although it does require a sign-up, anyone that is involved in design of websites would benefit from reading this. The document can be found at http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/318/rackspace-the-perfect-website. I seem to remember the company publishing a very similar article a year or so ago, but the findings are still as pertinent now as ever.

They conclude with, what I suspect is a slightly tongue-in-cheek 'magic formula' but there are some very important issues raised - and all of which are identified by actually speaking to the people that will use the website. What a novel idea!