Our flagship conference for web designers and developers, MIX, starts today in Las Vegas. This event is unlike any other Microsoft conference, with a fascinating mix of internal and external speakers even including a few that are openly hostile towards Microsoft! I know not everyone gets as frothed up about events like this as the blogosphere would have you believe. Neverthelesss, we're using this conference to make a number of major announcements: starting in less than ninety minutes...

If you're attending, welcome: hope to catch up with many of you in the corridors and lounges at the venue. If you're not attending, the visitmix.com site will put you in the front seat with on-site video blogging, live keynote streaming and other sessions posted throughout the conference.

What I really want to highlight, however, is three beautiful mash-up applications, written on the WPF platform, that demonstrate all the attributes for which we hope this conference will be known: great design, social networking and advanced technology.

• First off is mixMe from Thirteen23. This application is so well designed that it approaches a work of art, and if it doesn't put Thirteen23 firmly on the map as one of the most advanced practitioners of WPF, I don't know what will. From the dramatic opening transition to the 3D Flickr carousel to the most usable agenda builder I've ever seen, this application is a fantastic example of what WPF is capable of. Check this out regardless of whether you're attending the conference or not - you'll love it!
• Secondly, the Vertigo guys (from Friday's Family.Show fame) have put together a great little Twitter viewer - you can use this to sign up for the MIX07 feed if you really want to hear the low-level whisperings and chatter around the conference (mostly revolving around who is going to the restroom when and who is hanging around waiting where). They've got some other amazing little sample applications on their labs page - check them out.
• Lastly, our very own Karsten Januszewski has built the ultimate mash-up application that brings Flickr, Twitter and Facebook together into a single visualization. This will be doing the rounds at the event - it's loaded as a screensaver on most of the machines around the venue, and he'll be putting it up for public download at some point.

Make sure you check these applications out - and stay tuned to this blog - I'll be posting news and information as fast as I can type!