Microsoft will announce the private beta launch of Popfly this morning, a new Silverlight application that allows users to create mashups, widgets and other applications using a very cool and easy to use web-based graphical interface. We previously covered the launch of Yahoo Pipes and compared five different applications that let you mix data and build applications online. At the time we mentioned how this space was really heating up – and how Pipes from Yahoo simplified the creation of mashups and mini-applications by providing a drag+drop interface. Microsoft are the latest entrants in this market, and they have completely leapfrogged every other application we have seen so far.
Popfly is a big leap forward from the competitors above because it lets you do so much more, and it is one of the nicest web application interfaces I have ever seen. With Popfly, you can create applications, mashups, web pages and widgets (gadgets) and it is all tied together in a social network (as part of the Live Spaces platform) where you can connect with other users and publishers of applications. Mashups are created by dragging in and connecting ‘blocks’ which produce an output. Blocks are modules that connect to various web services API’s, and even today there are dozens of different blocks that work with a whole variety of different web services.
See additional screen shots and a link to a screencast on the Popfly overview page here.
Seeing applications like Popfly coming out of Microsoft is something that I couldn’t have imagined all too long ago – and together with the recent Silverlight announcements (which we were also very excited about) the new Microsoft is really starting to come out through their product releases. Popfly so far seems to be another potential big hit from the new Microsoft under Ray Ozzie (Ozziesoft).
Invites: While the private beta is very limited (even within Microsoft), we do have TEN invitations to send out. Leave a comment about how you would use Popfly and the best (or funniest) ten will be sent an invitation to the application.
I’d mash the web like it was a potato.
A sweet, data-filled potato.
I’m going to mash potatoes.
I’d create a Poplfly mashup to showcase Google, Yahoo and other ‘user friendly’ mashup tools and call it ‘ Doing it the Hard Way ‘…
I’m currently working on pedagogical applications of technology; I would like to use the Flickr API to create mashups that help students explore the use of visuals and visual culture for communication.
all your ideas are belong to Microsoft.
I don’t want your #@#@!@ invite.
invite please.
could somebody please create a mashup of Zillow with information on local crime statistics and education ratings? I dont’ have the time to do it, but I’d really like to find such a service. Basically, some nice graphical way to cross-reference realestate-crime-education. Ta-da! Million dollar idea!
We real cool. We
Left School. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon. We
Popfly. We
real high.
-Gwendolyn Brooks (paraphrased)
I would love an invite.
I’ve just started teaching my daughter about some of these services and how mashups work. I think she’d get a kick out of connecting the blocks, setting up prefs and getting something that works right away.
I would love an invitation! I was working with Mashups before we called them that (just “situational applications” at the time). I’ve worked with John at Programmableweb.com, made mashup videos with ~30,000 views, and demo mashup making for a living. I would love to see what I could squeeze out of this tool.
Right now I’m working on mashing a 3D simulation to show students (k-12) how they can reduce their carbon footprint on earth. This may be a good way to stress-test Popfly.
Please.
I’d like to experiment with Popfly to create mashups of video/photos/news of SciFi shows such as ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and have it update every day with new content and build a community of fans around it.
Thanks for the opportunity!
Violets are Blue
Roses are Red
Invite Me
Or I Create Closet Shrine to Om Malik Instead
I would use my invite to help people tag, link, rate, comment on, and podcast old clifornia raisins commercials.
CALifornia raisins … dammit.
I’d also like to create a “Six Degrees of MMO” widget. Pulling from official player profiles on World of Warcraft, EQ2 and other games that host profiles, a player can see how many degrees they are connect to a friend and/or well known online celebirty. For example, if you are in the Reapers Guild on the Malfurion Server in World of Warcraft, you may be only three degrees away from Red Sox Pitcher Curt Schilling who is an avid EQ2 player (because someone in your guild has an alt in Eve who is in a guild with another player who has a character in Curt’s EQ2 guild.)
I would create a mash up which would bring the content right after RSS feeds or would just open a popup and would haze the background. But in pop-up I would not display the cluttering ads. I would use ‘Print Preview” link on each site . As print preview button bring entire story on one page with no cluttering of Ads but unfortunately no website has standard API for print page link so little bit of programming would be needed and I am ready to do that. I am even trying it out for yahoo pipes. In Yahoo pipes at least I have mapped “perma-link” URLs of each story item to point to “Print Preview” link rather the simple link which opens a lot of pop-ups and too many ads. Also if story is big enough we have to click next next to read multi page story!
I promise to embed 10 widgets made from popFly for 30 days on http://iNewsDaily.com…
Whats the deal with the .MS domain extension…? Doesn’t seem very professional.
One more idea, I’d like to try to create a nucleus of video/photos/news/product around an upcoming convention. Conventions are used to socialize and make new contacts centered around a common interest. What if you could view photos of people attending (flickr, etc), fan made videos (YouTube, metacafe, etc), Official and unofficial news content and commentary (Dapper & googleAlerts) and all the related minutiae surrounding the event.
I’ve got a static web page done in HTML with Frontpage. It’s a pain to update and I’d like to include some ways for my family (spread all over the US) to be able to leave little messages and for me to get RSS or comments quickly. I’d also like to be able to show my pictures on larger screens (like my PS3). I’d also like to see what the capabilities are of Silverlight and also how easy it is to put things together. I’d also like to get my son (who is thinking about working with technology) thinking about how he could put different pieces of technology together and create something cool for his friends to use and keep in touch over the summer.
Hi, Nik. I’d like an invite. Here’s what I’d do with Popfly:
I’d first use OpenKapow to create a REST-based API on top of IMDB.com. The API would let me pass it the name of city and get back all the movies filmed there. Then I’d create a Popfly Mashup that displays in a map the location of all my friends in Spaces and what movies were filmed in there location. I love movies!
-Barco
Hi,
I would love an account – just because I’m curious.
Thanks,
J
This is the power of user-generated content contests in action. 121 comments and counting, all for 10 potential beta invites.
Thanks for the offer. For travellers, and I am one, a mashup of travel reviews, last minute offers and weather has an interest, additions to this foundation are plenty. The focus being the timely nature of the info and randomness of the choices.
A long weekend in a sunny location would be great but is the weather forecast good? is there an un-beatable offer and what are people saying about the place?
Thanks,
GJW
I will use this to mashup content from Associated Content’s best Content Producers into a real time publishing widget that CP’s can then place on their blogs.
I’d also like to make a Starlet photo watcher mashup. This would pull photos from across several sites like flickr.com of our favorite young celbs. like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
I will mashup the forenamed mashup with a mashup to create the mashup which will be better than the previously named mashup that will compete with the mashup that is already a mashup to believe that a mashup might just be the thing that the mashup needs to be effective with the costs and benefits which a mashup has. Furthermore, the mashup won’t just mashup with the mashup, it will mashup WITH the mashup to create the mashup.
Thank you.
I’m mostly interested in creating blocks to make it even easier for other users to create quality mashups without resorting to code.
Blocks for combining and interleaving two or more RSS feeds, for instance, or two or more sources of photo information for display on Virtual Earth.
Would love an invite.
I’ll build a Mologogo on steroids — enabling a generic mobile gateway to the ecosystem of Popfly. Browse through the functions on your cell phone and invoke them remotely, displaying the result on your phone. That’s going to be awesome!
If I told you I`d have to kill you.
hmm what now? All I want to do is make the earth spin backwards.
Hey chaps. This is Mike Calore from Wired News. I think I deserve an invite because I think you seriously dropped the ball on those screenshots. I could totally do a better job creating something sexy that’s compelling to look at on my blog given the chance. Twitter? Come on… it’s all Frazr these days!
A search + map + advertising + office mash-up that only works 90% of the time and forces you to use Vista, IE, a Windows Live account AND gets updated every Tuesday.
It will be a complete rip-off of something somebody else did in Open Source but I’ll threaten a law suit while sending emails about delays in Apple’s iPhone.
I just made this name up and darn I think it’s funny. Has anyone else seen that used before? I claim it as mine.
We-e-e-elll.. la-de-freakin’-da! ..is that Bill Shakespeare over there?
With PopFly and my uber-sized evil brain I will create the world’s largest mall that will encircle the earth in a geo-stationary orbit. Overpriced coffee will flow from every fountain and Wi-MAX will be free, forever addicting the population of the world who will never want to leave my “sky-mall”. I will then re-populate the earth with bees and whales. I will thus require not one but all ten invitations.
Dr Noooo…..
crap.
http://www.goog...amp;btnG=Search
How about a communication aggregator that consolidates email, im and social networks, contacts, presence… obviously, the backend infrastructure is not there yet, but it is kinda stupid to receive an email notification that you have a new email on myspace, isn’t it?
I’d change the name from Popfly to “Infield Fly Rule” or “Can of Corn.”
I want an invite. If I had PopFly I wold use it to make something super-recursive. What happens when a mashup mashes up….its very self!
if they kept creating this kind of stuff… sooner, the world doesnt even need a programmer….
Please send an invite-
It shall be:
1. Brussel Sprout Pancakes fried on an TRS80 run over a TTY (complete with Bell Ack).
2, Ok. Maybe a Ham Radio, Map, APRS, FCC ULS thingy. or
3, Dorothy’s Ruby Red Shoes in Kansas with Apollo’s Trident.
4. Something to pester MS Folk about at the Maker Fair today in San Mateo!
5. Sluther of number of calls my daughter receives over time and location, matched to her Myspace profiles of IM buddies.
Pick one or none. Adam Glickman
I would like to habe an invation too..
Thanks!
May I have an invititation.
I will be continuing the Gumby mash bash fun.
Here’s what we did with netvibes.
http://www.netvibes.com/gumby
I’d love to see what we can do with Pop-fly… maybe Pokey-fly?
Enjoy!
Blessings and Peace:
Our organization had been exploring a more expensive technology
for creating MashUps, that we probably read about in TC: Kapow Technologies.
Our aim is to serve the community of Katrina Survivors and Rebuilders, by aggregating disparate silos of information; that has been slow in coming, or is not conveniently packaged in easy to use form.
PopFly looks like it would be a more affordable and easier to use alternative. Thus, we’re throwing our hat into this big ring; to vie for one
of the coveted ten invites.
In Service of THE ONENESS,
Rafiki “The Digital Doctor” Cai
I’ve got nothing to tell, I only thought “144″ a bad number for the last comment.
So now we are at 145.
If anybody disagrees, feel free to add yet another comment!
MPM
God what are Microsoft doing right here as I’m watching grown men ( women are obviously a lot smarter ) grovel for an invite to use Popfly..
Well damn it I’m not going to lower myself to that level… do you hear me Biill? I’m not for sale..
I’d like access if its not to late.
Reasoning:
1. We’re already in development with Apollo.
2. I’d like to know if Silverlight can accomplish the same thing.
3. I can’t give you any idea what we’re developing.
4. However, I will give you an exclusive preview of the product at closed beta
I would create a new 3D environment where people can walk around a 3D house and lots that are for sale, with placement on the map of the models and pre-defined views of the interior of the house. Perfect for previewing houses on the web before driving out to see the open house.
See what I’ve done so far at http://www.3dhouse.net. I want to take it to the next level with Popfly.com.
Thanks,
Craig H Gray
I would like to see if I could connect this to the Google Adwords APIs, and create a mashup application that help you set up campaings in Adwords. Get a nice (graphical) insight of the companies you are competing with for certain keywords. Where are they located (Maps), what do thir products look like (pictures), etc.
If only I got invited…
a mashup that puts world of warcraft characters into second life. could shake things up a little.