Microsoft Popfly (internally codenamed Springfield) was a Web site that allowed users to create web pages, program snippets, and mashups using the Microsoft Silverlight rich Internet applications runtime and the set of online tools provided. It was discontinued on August 24, 2009.
The Popfly included four tools based on Silverlight technology, which are described as follows.
The Game Creator is a tool that you can create your own game. It could be exported to Facebook, or used as a Windows Live Gadget.
The Mashup Creator was a tool that let the users fit together in different web services and visualization tools. For example, a geotagged map of pictures and a topic of their choice. An advanced view for blocks allowed users to modify the code of the block in JavaScript. Additional HTML code could be added to the mashups. A feature similar to IntelliSense, with autocompletion of HTML code, was available as well. The Mashup Creator also provides a preview function. Tutorials were available, and error notices were given to users when incompatible data was sent between blocks.
The Web Creator was a tool for creating Web pages. The web interface was created without HTML coding, and could be customized by choosing predefined themes, styles, and color schemes. Users could embed their shared mashups in the Web page. Completed Web pages could also be saved in each user’s Popfly space.
Completed mashups and Web pages were stored on Popfly Space (100MB maximum per user), where users also received a customizable profile and other social networking features. Public projects could be shared, rated, or “ripped” by other users. Popfly allowed users to download mashups as gadgets for Windows Sidebar or embed them in Windows Live Spaces, with some support for other blog service providers. Another feature of Popfly Space was the Popfly Explorer plug-in for Visual Studio Express. Users could use Visual Studio Express (Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions or higher required) to download the mashups and modify the coding, as well as perform actions such as uploading, sharing, ripping, and rating the mashups.
On July 16, 2009, the Popfly team announced that the Popfly service would be discontinued on August 24, 2009. All sites, references, and resources were taken over, and this product is considered defunct.