In August 2007, Microsoft heralded the release of their Silverlight software by boasting that MLB.com (Major League Baseball) would be using Silverlight to stream their videos.
As MLB.com is one of the most successful and popular subscription based video sites on the web with 2.5 million subscribers and lots of traffic (an Alexa rank in the 290 range), this was big news.
But the bigger news is that yesterday MLB.com announced that they are through with Silverlight and are switching over to Flash to stream their video content.
Now if you’re not familiar with what Silverlight and Flash are all about, Flash is the dominant video format on the web and Silverlight is Microsoft’s attempt to enter the arena. I did a previous post about Silverlight here, recommending that you avoid Silverlight and stick to Flash.
After trying Silverligh for about a year, it seems MLB.com feels the same way.
Or as Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLBAM said “Flash provides a TV-like experience. You turn it on and it works. We want it to be flexible so we can add features…and it’s got to be scalable. We are the largest server of live entertainment in the country. Whether we are serving 20,000 for one game or 250,000 for another game, it’s got to be scalable over periods of time like nothing else.”
By the way, Bob Bowan declined to comment about his thoughts on Silverlight. However, my educated guess is that the users of MLB.com had a large voice is prompting the switch to Flash. After all, 98% of people on the Internet can watch Flash videos instantly. Only about 25% can watch Silverlight videos…and…they had to jump through some hoops to get there. That’s never a good idea with Internet users who often have the attention span of a gnat.
The lesson to be learned? Stick with Flash for your web videos. It’s what your audience wants (even when they don’t know what Flash is).