Big Rich Media news for both Silverlight and Flash

It's been a big week for news in the Rich Media space and both Flash and Silverlight have been able to make a splash. Rich Media is arguably one of the most important use cases for the major Rich Internet Application platforms. It drives penetration and the rise of YouTube helped Flash become the defacto standard for web video. The very first version of Silverlight focused very heavily on video knowing that without video, you can't build the kind of fun, interactive applications that are garnering so much attention. So the announcements last week by Maven Networks and today's by Britghtcove are significant for the space.

Last week Maven Networks announced a partnership with Microsoft that would bring Silverlight to Maven's Internet TV Platform. Maven has some big customers including 20th Centry Fox, Sony Pictures Television, CBS, CSTV, Hearst and Univision Online. The company currently supports Flash, but with this announcement, will let its users choose either Silverlight or Flash video. It's a solid strategy for both companies. Silverlight has done a great job of focusing on video quality and is ahead of Flash in terms of technical quality (though the recent Flash Player update may change that). This deal with Maven gives users a chance to try Silverlight while not giving up Flash Video for those who haven't installed the Silverlight plugin yet.

The second deal, announced this morning, is with Brigthcove and FOX Networks. FOX is going to syndicate content via Brightcove and allow it to be embedded on blogs and other places so that users can share and promote FOX content wherever they want. Brightcove has been doing a really great job of helping to revolutionize the internet TV space and they've done it mostly on the back of Flash. They continue to expand their library of content and have recently been working on Brightcove Aftermix which is a Flash application that helps content creators mix in music, pictures and video clips to create a rich media mashup.