Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Heads Up: Microsoft Launches Popfly as Public Beta

Remember Popfly? We looked at it back in May. It's Microsoft's attempt to create a Web page designer for laypeople (and an excuse to liberally toss around the word "mashup"). The site was built on top of MS's post-Flash Silverlight platform and features, among other things, its own social network (Popfly Space) and a Google My Maps-like app.

We haven't heard much about the service over the past few months, most likely because it's remained in limited alpha all this time.

Popfly emerged into public beta today, boasting some new features that weren't found in the previous build. It now has Facebook/blog/Web site plugins, including games, slideshows, eBay auction trackers, and Halo 3 stat trackers. You'll also find "leverage blocks" from companies such as Twitter and Facebook, designed to "drive awareness of and traffic to your site." The new Popfly also includes the ability to create Web pages for groups.

I wasn't quite as impressed by the first version of Popfly as the Microsoft team very clearly thought I should be. Perhaps it's time to take another look.

No comments:

Post a Comment