Microsoft builds 'Tafiti' Silverlight-based search app

Microsoft has built a new search application based on its Silverlight "Flash killer" technology.

That application, code-named "Tafiti" (which is Swahili for "do research" or "to search" -- I've seen both explanations) is a mash-up of Live Search (including its subcategories, like books. blogs, news, images) and Silverlight. The app also is integrated with other Live properties, including Windows Live ID, Windows Live Spaces,

As explained by Microsoft officials on the US ISV Developer Evangelism blog, Tafiti

"enhances searching on the web by allowing users to store and share search results across multiple queries and sessions. This is accomplished by using 'shel(ves)' to store one or more search results simply by dragging the search result onto one of five shelf spaces. Shel(ves) can then be stored for future use, or can be emailed or blogged about with ease."

Because it is based on Release Candidate (RC) of the Silverlight 1.0 browser plug-in, Tafiti runs everywhere Silverlight does: On Vista or XP SP2 running Internet Explorer 6, IE 7, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 and Firefox 2.0.x; and on Mac OS X using Firefox 1.5.0.8 and Firefox 2.0.x. To test drive Tafiti, users, not surprisingly, need to have a pre-release version of Silverlight installed.

Tafiti is a proof-of-concept an experimental app more than anything else. It is not currently a Microsoft-supported product, and it sounds like it's not likely to become one. It's just designed to show off the kinds of apps developers can build using Silverlight.

There's a first-look video demo of Tafiti on Microsoft's on10.net site.