Silverlight Streaming announced at Mix

Our team is doing a lot of work on producing screencasts (Nuggets we call them) and are using the Microsoft.com servers to host them. I heard about Silverlight Streaming a while ago and thought what a wonderful solution to our hosting needs - Silverlight Streaming would allow us to move to Silverlight for the media/browser experience and Silverlight Streaming will provide the hosting to us for free (or very cheap if we get as popular as we hope to).

What is Silverlight Streaming?

Silverlight Streaming is a hosted video service that allows developers and designers to upload videos (10 min DVD[700Kbps] limit during Alpha phase) to use in *their* Silverlight applications. NB *their* is the cool bit, you design and develop the player to fit with your site/application/business and Silverlight Streamign takes care of the rest - sweet deal!

How do I start to play with this stuff?

Grab the Silverlight Streaming SDK and start playing with it. Now, it is an Alpha release, so expect some quirks but definitely worth checking out. I personally, plan to create a site dedicated to the crazy videos of my cat, (Gorgeous) George (Gonzalez) [- I didn't name him!!], running round our apartment chasing the laser pointer on my MS Presenter 3000 - it's bound to be an overnight internet success!

What next?

Create an account here for free and check out the Silverlight Showcase for examples of what is possible with the technology in the media space.