So, as I mentioned this morning, Microsoft is slowly and steadily releasing more information about their new Silverlight technology platform. Some interesting stuff has been released so far, and I thought I would share it with y’all (some of my Texas roots there).

The big announcement is about the new “Silverlight Streaming” which essentially is a place where developers can stream out their silverlight apps for free. While the product is in Alpha/Beta stages, they are giving any developers up to 4 GB of free storage space that can be used to stream video and applications up to 700 Kbps.

Once they release developers get free streaming up to “one million minutes”. After that you will have ads or have to pay a “nominal fee”…who knows what that means.

I, for one, think this is pretty sweet. One of the bad things about playing around with new web technologies is you typically had to get hosting just to play around. With this service, you can play around all you want and not have to pay a dime. If you are using more than a million minutes of streaming time, then I would think that you are getting some nice traffic which should be able to pay for any “nominal fee”.

You can find more about it here. Also, here is a link to a Microsoft blog post to help you get started.

Another big announcement is the simple fact that you can program Silverlight apps using C#. Why is this a big deal? Well, simply put, it allows non-windows developers to create Silverlight apps. I think in the coming months/years Silverlight is going to be a big deal and reaching out to the non-MS crowd will be an important part of that.

One final note for the day…if you want to see a really cool “Mix” app, you should check out mixme by thirteen23. The pictures part is a bit seizure inducing, but it gives you a great feel for what is possible with WPF and Silverlight.