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Microsoft launches Popfly web site/mashup creator
The new service, called Popfly, lets you create a web site from scratch without any knowledge of HTML, CSS, or anything else with an acronym. Just choose your style, upload some images if you like, and type away. What sets Popfly apart from the similar Google Page Creator service is that Popfly includes a built-in mashup tool.
What does a mashup tool have to do with creating web pages? Well, it lets you create all sorts of interesting content for your web site by taking bits and pieces of other web-based objects. For example, you can create a slideshow from Flickr photos matching a certain description, or even create an interactive puzzle game from those photos and put it on your site.
The mashup tool is built on Microsoft's Silverlight platform, which is the company's answer to Adobe Flash. You can drag and drop all sorts of objects into your editor, making the whole process pretty simple, if not exactly intuitive. We highly recommend reading the instructions. Not that we wasted a half hour trying to figure things out before looking at the easy to follow instructions on the sidebar.
[via WebWare]
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsVictor Agreda JrOct 18th 2007 10:23PM
I wonder how standards-compliant those pages wind up being? Because, you know, FrontPage was a model of web citizenry.
Evan YoungOct 18th 2007 11:37PM
Be very careful of the Microsoft Live Services licensing terms, anything you post is treated as a 'submission' and they can potentially use your work without your permission.
Evan
SammyOct 19th 2007 12:13AM
MashupMania.com is another visual mashup builder thatjust recently launched. Not as fancy as PopFly, and definitely a beta, it seems to takesa different approach than PopFly, and even Yahoo Pipes. Might be worth checking out if you are into mashups. Note that the web-based tool runs only in Firefox...
AlexOct 19th 2007 10:11AM
Also check out Orchestr8's AlchemyPoint ( www.orch8.net ), another mashup builder platform released in the last few weeks. It doesn't require Silverlight, and offers some neat capabilities you won't find in Popfly (like visually copying/pasting parts of any website, not just data from content partners).
michaelOct 19th 2007 5:07PM
@Evan Young:
Like anyone cares?
@Sammy & Alex : Alternatives are for losers. Popfly is the real thing, and I've used it before, and it beats the pants off of anything. Firefox only practically kills MashupMania. And Silverlight is the next best thing since Flash.