Missed in my everyday panic, I forgot to post something about an important - I believe - announcement, so here its is :

A few days before Microsoft announced a formal partnership with Facebook, the second largest social network, at a Facebook Launch event for their new platform. The partnership will enable integration of Facebook’s new platform using Popfly and Visual Studio and further extend the reach of Silverlight applications to Facebook which has 23 million users and 40 billion page views a month.  The Microsoft and Facebook partnership means Facebook are now empowered to customize their Facebook pages.

Even if they have no development experience, Facebook users will have tools that let them create pages that reflect their personality:

  • Using Microsoft Popfly, users will now be able to build dynamic, interactive applications using the Facebook social graph including friends, photos, and events.
  • Visual Studio Express and the .NET API for Facebook will provide developers to build Facebook-enabled Windows, Web, or Microsoft Office.
  • Facebook users can also connect or mashup Facebook data with existing Popfly blocks such as media services from Soapbox, gamer information from Xbox Live, or mapping services using Virtual Earth.
  • Microsoft Silverlight is key to this rich interactivity providing a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in. The Facebook Platform also includes support for applications built with Silverlight.