I have been collaborating with a great customer in Bellevue, WA by the name of InfoSpace.  Many of you might already be familiar with them.  Recently, InfoSpace has gone through some changes - they have restructured and in many ways are now operating like a startup.  It is very exciting to step into their high-energy environment and to sense their enthusiasm.
 
InfoSpace has just launched a new toolbar offering.  What is unique is that they are one of first to leverage Silverlight™ to enable such an experience.  The first toolbars delivered by InfoSpace are for wallpaper and recipe content -- and this information is neatly presented to the consumer via a rich and animated 'fly out' (or 'drop down') extending directly from the toolbar.

Here is a graphical capture of the wallpaper toolbar shown in an extended form:

The recipes toolbar follows the same basic design, so multiple toolbars fit nicely together and provide the same base experience.  The view above is the fully extended view – they look like normal toolbars when not in use and only come alive when you want to interact with them.  The target markets are currently geared toward 19-24 year old women and 45-54 year old women who use the internet lightly.  As the additional toolbars are released to the market, other demographics will be targeted.

The use of a rich interactive technology, like Silverlight, to power a user interactivity is important as it creates an engaging experience for the user.  Unlike other toolbars available today, crammed with undistinguishable icons, the toolbars developed by InfoSpace are a fresh experience with simple, elegant and consistent user experiences.  Each toolbar sort of act as a Rich Interactive Application (RIA) that happens to live at the top of your browser. 

In the case of InfoSpace, their toolbars are a clever way to bridge users to a new search product branded as 'Nation.com'.     



Nation leverages InfoSpace meta-search capabilities, including Microsoft Live Search along with Google, Yahoo and Ask for the end results.   In 2009, InfoSpace plans  to build over 20 more toolbars which shall provide additional avenues for Nation.com.  Each toolbar, in its own unique way, serves as a channel to Nation.com, thus increasing search queries and traffic.

From a pure business perspective, the toolbars serve as the foundation of a scaleable approach for a Cost per Acquisition business model.  Simplicity and elegance are the keys to making these distinct offerings and Silverlight was a logical means by which to enable that business scalability.

InfoSpace plans to soon release more toolbars related to things like weather, entertainment (think "rich media"), horoscopes, and music, and many more in the coming months, so keep a lookout.

Kudos should also be given to two local partners who were instrumental in assisting with the InfoSpace toolbar offerings:  Artefact and IdentityMine.  

          

A resounding "job well done" goes out to InfoSpace, Artefact, and IdentityMine.

Software + Services

This is also a tremendous, yet simple, example of what Microsoft is calling Software plus Services (S+S for short).  S+S recognizes the need for local software resources accessing services available in the cloud.  You get the strength of the local processing power and the flexibility to store data and assets in the cloud, and you can call upon those assets when you need them.  This is a very simple scenario because the toolbars are still operating under the influences of the browser.  However you could ratchet-up the local processing power (and user experience) outside of the browswer with great technologies like Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which is based on the same underlying technology and principle (i.e., XAML).