Introducing the Silverlight 4 Beta Client for Facebook

Want to see what Silverlight is capable of and what kind of experiences the forth version of Microsoft’s alternative to Adobe Flash enables developers to build? Then look no further than the Microsoft Silverlight 4 Beta Client for Facebook. The application leverages many of the capabilities introduced by Microsoft with the evolution of Silverlight. Of course, users will need Silverlight 4 in order to experience the client created for Facebook.

“This application brings together the many compelling platform capabilities of Silverlight 4 into a rich out-of-browser application in the familiar context of Facebook. Enjoy the photos, feeds, events, friends’ walls, and inbox mail from your Facebook account in an appealing and user-friendly environment,” reads the description of the application.

According to the information accompanying the Silverlight 4 Beta Client for Facebook, the project makes use of the following Silverlight features: out-of-browser support, hosting HTML content interactively, local Device access (webcam), rich-Text control, embedding alternative media content (i.e., YouTube), desktop notifications, COM integration (with Outlook) on the Windows platform, right-click, drag-n-drop, window control and animations.

Microsoft released the first Beta for Silverlight 4 in mid-November 2009, at the Professional Developers Conference 2009 in Los Angeles. However, while the bits are indeed available, Silverlight 4 Beta is intended as a developer-only release, and is not accompanied by a go-live license, which means that all content needs to be built for testing purposes only. “Silverlight Client for Facebook is a Silverlight 4 developer preview application. When Silverlight 4 is finally released you may be required to uninstall and re-install the plugin,” it is added in the description of the project.

Silverlight 4 Beta is available for download here.