Microsoft Debuts Silverlight 4 Beta Client For Facebook
For the first time ever…to both Windows and MacOS fans~
Remember Fishbowl for Facebook? Well, for those who didn’t, it was a Facebook desktop client released by Microsoft during their annual PDC back in late 2009. Fishbowl is developed by UXLabs@Microsoft and is entirely powered by Microsoft Silverlight, providing an incredible browsing experience of the popular social networking site. Question is, Fishbowl is slightly slow and can be a bit hard to get used to.
Worry not, for Microsoft came up with another alternative – a better one! Microsoft released a Silverlight 4 Beta Client just for Facebook as of now. Like Fishbowl, it runs Facebook using a desktop application instead of the browser, but compared to Fishbowl, it is much faster and more complete in features! This new desktop client for Facebook spots a dark and sleek interface, starting off with the Home screen right down to the Photo-browsing page. Even the photo uploader is pretty neat and workable compared to Fishbowl.
I would ditch Fishbowl any day for such an improvement, but there are setbacks too. If there’s anything…anything that this desktop client lack in features, it doesn’t have the chat function which is available in the browser-based Facebook. Besides, since Silverlight 4 will required reinstallation once it is out of beta, so it may be a troublesome thing that novice users will have to worry about in the future.
Some additional screenshots for your viewing pleasure:
For those interested to use Facebook poweredby the latest Silverlight 4 Beta, you can get them from this website.
