Facebook and Microsoft have partnered to create a standalone Facebook client powered by the new Silverlight 4 Beta technology. The client allows you to browse and interact with Facebook with a completely different interface, and a glossy one at that. To be completely honesty, the client is gorgeous, and the complete integration with Facebook legitimately makes this a better way to browse Facebook than Facebook.com itself, in my opinion.
Starting up the Silverlight client, you’re first bombarded with a series of permissions dialogs, asking whether you are are willing to allow the application to have access to every aspect of Facebook: News Feeds, Wall, Messages and more. The process isn’t overly annoying, because frankly, as Facebook users, we’ve come to expect the permissions requests before utilizng applications. The Facebook Connect permissions dialogs are pretty standard across sites, and lend a bit of authenticity to applications.
After this process, you arrive at the heart of the client, and it is quite striking in a complete black finish. Silverlight really demonstrates its strength here, with lots of available space and big fonts. Browsing is quite easy, and my various friends lists are listed along the left side of the client. The most impressive element of the new interface is the photo album on the right side, it’s a unique way of showing the recent photos within my network. The events tab is also a completely superior alternative to the way that the Facebook Events calendar can be viewed.
One glaring omission is in the system is Facebook Chat, but I imagine this is part of future releases. Another problem was the lack of search anywhere on the client: At least give me a Bing or something. Finally, I had a real problem when trying to look at some specific photos from my friends feed, I kept getting this error: ”the owner of this album did not make this available to this application”. Applications themselves are not available on the client, understandably.
Definitely check out the Silverlight Client and try browsing Facebook in a different way.
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The link at the bottom of the page drops to the Windows only version of the client. if you use a Mac try the upper link. Or just use this one: http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/apps/f...
Comment by Facebook User — February 2, 2010 @ 5:45 am
it would help if it worked!
"
Server Error in '/content/samples/apps/FacebookClient' Application.
Could not load file or assembly 'Elmah' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
"
Comment by Facebook User — February 2, 2010 @ 5:51 am
okay, Ctrl-F5 fixed that!
Comment by Facebook User — February 2, 2010 @ 6:02 am
If it's made by Microsoft, you can bet it won't work, or won't work for long without viruses, etc, just like Facebook.
Thanks…..I'll deal with FB the way it is in all it's unglorious status…..
Comment by Elinor Stewart — February 2, 2010 @ 6:26 am
I managed to install but I just get a white login box thats blank anyone managed to get it working?
Comment by Stu Greenham — February 2, 2010 @ 6:47 am
First, MS brings the Vista experience to Facebook.
Then they upgrade to the Windows 7 experience after a few hundreds of millions of dollars spent.
In the meantime, Facebook can decide how open it wants to be and curtail the adoption of any independent clients, especially if those clients display the content but not the ads or, worse still, display their own ads and make money at Facebook's expense (literally, since Facebook is burdened with the cost of serving those clients but not the benefit of exposing its ads thru them)
I know MSFT owns fractional equity in Facebook but I'm not sure that Facebook is willing to give up its ad revenue if everyone switches to independent clients that don't display those ads or display their own ads.
Even Google cut of access to its APIs when developers started using its search results without displaying the ads.
Not sure how Facebook can justify it.
Plus, it's Silverlight. Every time I install an update to Sliverlight on my Mac (to watch Netflix) my audio stops working until I reboot.
Marc
Comment by Marc Fawzi — February 2, 2010 @ 7:26 am
The link provided (http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/apps/facebookclient/sfcquickinstall.aspx) will error out, and if it doesn't, it won't get Silverlight 4 Beta installed. I suspect it's a vestigial page we aren't supposed to use.
Use this link instead: http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/apps/f...
Comment by Wade — February 2, 2010 @ 7:35 am
or maybe FB is allowing this as part of a fundamental shift in their business model from ad-based revenue to Facebook Credits based revenue?
Still, FB is not open enough YET for a truly functional 3rd party client to exist.
Comment by Marc Fawzi — February 2, 2010 @ 7:37 am
Hey, if you have a problem with the link, unfortunately it's on Microsoft's end… The Client page has been throwing errors no matter which link you use, unfortunately.
Comment by Neil Vidyarthi — February 2, 2010 @ 8:33 am
You may need install Silverlight 4 beta first
Comment by 500 — February 3, 2010 @ 9:23 pm
It is great!
Elinor Stewart – February 2nd, 2010 at 10:26 am
If it’s made by Microsoft, you can bet it won’t work, or won’t work for long without viruses, etc, just like Facebook.
It's not microsoft's fault! It's because Windows is the most popular OS in the world
Comment by mohi — April 24, 2010 @ 10:34 pm
It just worked for me no bother.
Didn't we get over this Mac vs PC rubbish last decade?
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