Microsoft announced a product called Silverlight back at the Mix conference in the spring of 2007.  As a part of this some select partners were offered the opportunity to begin developing on the platform early and showcase their work at the conference.  One of these partners was San Francisco based Metaliq.  They built one of the first online video editing apps called “Top Banana.”  When I saw this app I realized that “Top Banana” was really the beginning of broad based user generated rich media.  So far we’ve only seen social media thrive where user generated content takes the form of text and images.  I know what you’re thinking…what about YouTube.  YouTube is absolutely rich social media, but I question how much of YouTube is really user generated.  And even if someone were to throw out a stat like 80% of the content is actually created by the user who posts it, the site doesn’t enable video neophytes to become publishers the way “Top Banana” could…