Windows Experience Blog : Social Networking

The Windows Platform, Silverlight 4, and Facebook

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:02:33 GMT

Last week, we announced the availability of the Facebook SDK for .NET developers. The SDK supports coding for both Silverlight and the Windows Platform (WPF, etc.). Yesterday, Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform, took the stage for his part of the Day 2 Keynote at PDC09 where he announced Silverlight 4.

During the keynote, an out-of-browser Silverlight 4 application called SilverFace was demonstrated. SilverFace was developed using the Facebook SDK we announced last week.

SilverFace lets you do all kinds of things on Facebook directly from your Windows desktop such as update your status, upload photos, view friend’s photos and videos, and much more. This application is meant to serve as a proof point for the capabilities of Silverlight 4 in combination with the Facebook SDK and is not an actual product. You can think of this as more of a “technology showcase” and a demo of what the technology can do.

For those of you wanting to try out physical code (and is pretty cool), I’ve got something just for you.

Today, we’re making available an application for Windows 7 called Fishbowl for Facebook. This application is a sample application created by UXLabs@Microsoft that showcases the Windows Platform (when I say Windows Platform = .NET Platform) and takes advantage of key Windows 7 features.

Download: Fishbowl for Facebook Preview

Fishbowl for Facebook lets you quickly post a Status Update to Facebook, watch your Facebook News Feed, post comments, browse your friends and their photos and upload photos directly from their Windows 7 desktop. Let me take you through a few key areas of the app. I’ll start with the Windows 7 integration.

When running, Fishbowl for Facebook takes advantage of new Windows 7 features such Taskbar Previews and Jump Lists.

For example, when moving your mouse over the Fishbowl for Facebook icon on your Windows Taskbar, you get a Taskbar Preview. This allows you to quickly navigate quickly between Home (you’re News Feed), your friends list, your profile, and photos. You can also quickly go to Facebook’s homepage too.

If you right-click on the Fishbowl for Facebook, you get a Jump List that lets you see your most recent notifications. It also lets you switch to “mini-mode”.

You can upload photos to Facebook using Fishbowl for Facebook – simply by drag-and-drop!

Just put a title in, choose the album you want to add the photo to (or create a new album), and hit upload! Here I am dragging a panoramic photo I created in Windows Live Photo Gallery from my visit in September to the U.S.S. Hornet in Oakland, CA.

See the red lines under the “U.S.S.” and “SFO” text? Yeah, that’s spell check. Fishbowl for Facebook comes with spell check to help ensure you don’t accidently spell important words wrong that your friends can make fun of you for the rest of your life with. Trust me, it happens ;-)

While browsing a photo album, you can view the album in a slideshow, save photos, print photos, and zoom in and out.

And Fishbowl for Facebook supports Windows Touch too.

Ok, one last thing – when browsing your friends in Fishbowl for Facebook, you are given several ways of sorting through your friends. You can sort by name (display name or family), last Status Update, Upcoming Birthdays, or Interest Level. And you can also adjust Interest Level of individual friends by simply clicking on a friend and viewing their profile. Interest Levels let you control how much of that friend’s stuff hits your News Feed. If you have an annoying friend, just turn the Interest Level way down.

There are a lot of neat experiences you can have with Fishbowl for Facebook so give the app a spin yourself! Remember, you can download it here.

Fishbowl for Facebook will run on Windows XP and Windows Vista but requires .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 to be installed (this is not needed if you’re on Windows 7 as it’s built in). For the best experience with Fishbowl for Facebook, it is recommended you use Windows 7 to take advantage of all its features. Fishbowl for Facebook with automatically update when updates are available as well so when we make updated available, you’ll get them! But please note that Fishbowl for Facebook is meant as a sample application showing what developers can do with the Windows Platform and the Facebook SDK. This is NOT an officially supported product.

Stay tuned, Yochay from the Windows 7 for Developers Blog will be posting some behind-the-scenes geeky developer stuff shortly. For you developers out there, this will be a must-read. I can’t wait to see more applications like this for the Windows Platform.

Seesmic Moving to Windows Platform, Announces Seesmic for Windows

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:05:41 GMT

During this morning’s keynote at PDC09 – Seesmic Founder Loic Le Meur joined Ray Ozzie on stage to make a very important announcement regarding the future of Seesmic. Seesmic focuses on bringing many of your favorite social networking services like Twitter and Facebook together into a single application so you don’t have to bounce between those services. They are best known for their Abobe AIR Twitter and Facebook app called Seesmic Desktop today.

While on stage with Ray, Loic announced the launch of Seesmic for Windows.

With the vast majority of Seesmic users coming from PCs running Windows, the move to the Windows Platform made sense. By moving development to focus primarily on the Windows Platform, it will allow Seesmic to focus on providing the best user experience to the majority of its users. This includes addressing issues with performance. Loic also announced that Seesmic for Windows will allow developer to write plug-ins that can run securely within the application.

As part of today’s announcement, Seesmic is releasing a Preview release of Seesmic for Windows. Seesmic for Windows is Seesmic’s brand new desktop client developed on the Windows Platform. They have been working aggressively to have this Preview release ready for you today.

Seesmic for Windows provides an excellent way to manage tweeting on Twitter. It helps you stay on top of what your friends are tweeting and what the latest trends on Twitter are.

Seesmic for Windows provides a “tabbed” UI (left-side of the app) that lets you filter your Twitter “stream” of tweets. You can filter by account as Seesmic for Windows supports having multiple Twitter accounts signed in, searches and Twitter’s latest new feature called lists. Everything can be filtered into specific columns. You can drag the columns into whatever position you like and scroll right to left to view your columns. And the new posting bar in Seesmic for Windows makes it easy to switch from one account to multiple accounts.

I’ve had the pleasure of using Seesmic for Windows for the last few weeks now and it works great! I’m currently managing 2 Twitter accounts, a few lists and use the Twitter Search capabilities track tweets on Windows 7, Windows Live, and more. I am very excited about what’s to come for Seesmic for Windows. You can expect to see Seesmic for Windows take advantage of the Windows Taskbar enhancements in Windows 7 and when Twitter adds support for dynamic location, it will use Windows 7’s Location and Sensor Platform!

Seesmic for Windows was released to all Team Seesmic members during the keynote this morning. If you are a Team Seesmic member, you should have an email from Loic in your inbox with a link to download Seesmic for Windows. If you’re not a Team Seesmic member, don’t worry. Join Team Seesmic to download the Seesmic for Windows Preview and receive the latest and greatest builds. You can also head on over to Seesmic.com right now and sign-up to receive Seesmic for Windows when it becomes available as well. Give Seesmic for Windows a spin and be sure to follow @windowsblog and @mswindows!

Loic also demonstrated Seesmic ported over into Silverlight and running as a Silverlight-based app. Seesmic is also excited about the possibilities Silverlight will provide in regards to eventually creating a cross platform application.

For more on today’s announcements from Day 1 of PDC09, click here.

UPDATE: For more information on Seesmic’s announcements today including Seesmic for Windows, check out Loic Le Meur’s blog post!

Win Tickets to Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show!

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:44:49 GMT

UPDATE 10/26: After reviewing an early version of Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show, it became clear that the content was not a good fit for the Windows brand. So we are no longer sponsoring the show. However, we continue to have a good partnership with FOX including both Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein, and are working with them in other areas. We are still working together with FOX in other areas including reaching out to college students on campuses across the U.S.

Yesterday, we announced a marketing collaboration with FOX that will showcase Windows 7 launching October 22^nd.

Windows 7 will be the exclusive sponsor of an upcoming TV show from Seth MacFarlane called Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show (working title) which will air Sunday November 8th at 8:30 p.m. (EST and PST). Seth is the creator of “Family Guy,” “American Dad” and “The Cleveland Show.” It with star both Seth and his “Family Guy” co-star Alex Borestein (she does the voice of “Lois” among many other characters in case you were wondering). The show will air “commercial-free” instead featuring unique Windows 7-branded programming that blends seamlessly into the show. Seth and Alex teamed up with us here at Microsoft, Universal McCann and Crispin, Porter + Bogusky to come up with Windows 7 branded integrations within the show.

To celebrate this awesome collaboration with FOX, the Windows Outreach Team will be doing a giveaway as part of their ongoing #WinWin7 Contest on Twitter for exclusive tickets to see the taping of Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show in Los Angeles this Friday starting at 3:30pm.

Watch the tweets from @MSWindows this afternoon to find out how to win. For #winwin7 contest rules, click here.

As a huge Family Guy fan, I’m stoked to see this collaboration air on TV on November 8^th. And to those who win tickets to watch the taping, I will be jealous.

Side tidbit – to fellow Star Trek fans out there: Did you know Seth McFarlane did a small stint on Star Trek: Enterprise?

On top of sponsoring Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show, we are also working together with FOX to reach out to more than 4.3 million college students on campuses across the United States. The 12 week tour will give students a chance to try Windows 7 as well as enjoy customized entertainment created by FOX Licensing and Merchandising such as customized “Family Guy” content. That’s rad ;-)

#WinWin7 Twitter Contest Rolls On

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:01:04 GMT

Since the first tweet went out on the #WinWin7 Twitter Contest, the Windows Outreach Team on Microsoft’s official Windows Twitter account @MSWindows has been busy giving away some great (and somewhat goofy) prizes to their followers. The best part, through, is that I hear that things are just heating up.

Here’s a recap of what they’ve given away in the #WinWin7 promotion so far:

7 piping hot pizzas delivered right to followers’ doors
7 pounds of candy to satisfy followers’ penchants for sugar
$7.77 in shiny Andrew Jackson dollars and pennies
7 Microsoft keyboards and mice (PC mice, not live mice, that’d get messy)
@WindowsGamer gave away some signed Warhammer art books
2 gaming keyboards from @WindowsGamer
7 sodas from the stash on Microsoft’s Redmond campus

There’s more to come and the prizes are only getting better (and somewhat goofier).

Starting today, they are making a push for 77,777 followers by Windows 7 GA (October 22nd). Starting at 42,777 followers, they will give out a copy of Windows 7 to one of their lucky followers. Starting there, they will continue to give away a copy of Windows 7 for every 2,000 followers (so, at 44,777 then 46,777 and on and on). For those good at math, the more people we get to join, the more chances you (as a follower) have of winning a copy of Windows 7. All followers of @MSWindows are eligible, so those who have been loyal followers since the beginning are still in the running. Winners will receive their copy of Windows 7 they won after the Oct. 22 launch date.

When the magical number of 77,777 is reached, the Windows Outreach Team has some great (and super-secret) prizes to hand out. If you’re not following @MSWindows on Twitter already, you should consider doing so as things look like they will get pretty interesting ;-)

For more on the Windows Outreach Team, read this blog post.

Introducing The Windows Outreach Team and #WinWin7 on Twitter

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:46:22 GMT

If you happened to be searching for “pizza” on Twitter Search yesterday or are following the @mswindows Twitter account, chances are you witnessed the kickoff of #WinWin7. The Windows Outreach Team kicked off 7 weeks of Windows 7 by sending 7 piping-hot pizzas to 7 lucky Twitter followers.

And it won’t stop there.

Throughout the next 7 weeks, @mswindows will be giving away prizes all based on the number 7 (for Windows 7). Winners must take part in the challenges and are encouraged to invite friends to join in on the fun which all culminates on launch day - October 22nd.

Make sure you’re following @mswindows and tell them Brandon sent you. Oh and watch for the official #WinWin7 hash tag too.

Speaking of the Windows Outreach Team, how about meeting the supporting cast? You may have seen them on some of your favorite blogs and forums and didn’t really know who they were. Let’s change that.

Jeff D, Cody G and Ron S, are a savvy team tasked with reaching out to users and creating a real resource within the communities on the Web.

Along with Josh T on the @mswindows account, these team members bring a wealth of knowledge (both consumer and even a bit on the “techy” side) to the table. Anywhere from gaming to watching your media across your home network, these guys have been there and tried out the fixes and know what works and what doesn’t. You can bet on them to offer advice and an open ear, not a sales pitch and a bottom line – oddly enough, none of them wanted to be a snake oil salesman growing up.

So, keep a lookout for the team on some of your favorite blogs and forums and feel free to say “hi” or just ask a question. They’ll be sure to help get you on the track to whatever it is you need.

If you have any questions for the Windows Outreach Team, just send a tweet to @mswindows. Or leave a comment here too of course.

NOTE: The Windows Outreach Team also runs the Windows Live Twitter account @windowslive too.

Find The Windows Blog on Facebook!

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:02:01 GMT

You can now find The Windows Blog on Facebook and become a fan! Just click on the button below to go to our Facebook Page.

Remember, you can also follow The Windows Blog on Twitter as well.

Follow us on Twitter

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:47:51 GMT

This is just another quick reminder that for those of you who are on Twitter and want to stay on top of all the latest happenings with Windows through our blog posts here on The Windows Blog – you can follow The Windows Blog on Twitter. Each time we post a blog post here, it automatically gets “tweeted” to Twitter. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed as well. And of course I’m on Twitter too – feel free to follow me as well. When I’m not busy posting blog posts here, I’m tweeting about Windows and Windows Live or reading what others are saying.

For other Microsoft products and services on Twitter, Adam Kinney has a pretty nice list going here for you to also follow.

New Social Features Make Their Debut on Zune.net

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:09:07 GMT

The Zune Team has updated Zune.net today with several new interesting features. Their entire podcast catalog is now available to be browsed via Zune.net and can be subscribed to. When you pick a podcast to subscribe to, it fires up the Zune software and adds it to your Podcast collection. What’s even better though is all 12,000+ audio podcasts can now be streamed directly from Zune.net using Silverlight. So if there is an audio podcast you may want to listen to but not necessarily subscribe to (or download to your PC) - you can give it a listen on Zune.net. Currently, audio podcast streaming is available to folks in the U.S.

Another new feature hitting Zune.net is the ability to create music quizzes on your user profile. This allows you to quiz your friends with all your awesome music knowledge. You create the question and answers and people try to answer.

Zune Team member Jessica Zahn goes a little more in-depth on the new music quiz feature in this blog post.

Special thanks to Brian Seitz over on the Zune Insider for the heads up on today’s Zune.net updates. I’m told the Zune Team isn’t done making news this year so it will be very interesting to see what else they have up their sleeves.

If you haven’t already, you should check out the Zune 3.0 software. It offers a unique music listening experience and is a great way to discovery new music. Give Mixview a spin. Because music is an important part of me, I am constantly living inside the Zune software or playing music off my Zune 80 here in the office writing blogs or posting to Twitter.

Psst, you can also use Mixview on Zune.net too.

Follow The Windows Blog on Twitter!

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:48:37 GMT

You can now follow us here on The Windows Blog on Twitter. Essentially any post that hits our main RSS feed will get pushed to Twitter. If you’re someone who lives in Twitter this can be very useful in staying on top of all the latest Windows happenings.

Follow The Windows Blog