It's new so it will take some time until it's widely used. It's something like Microsoft version of Flash Player, and yes it is (or will be) cross browser and cross platform, (Windows and non-windows devices and computers) It's design to allow web applications to be developed with features that characterize a rich internet application: animation, vector graphics and audio-video playback. Silverlight competes with products such as Flash, Adobe Flex, Adobe Shockwave, Java FX, and Apple QuickTime. -- Wikipidia Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight Right now very very few sites use it (mostly Microsoft), however like Flash it will take several years before it picks up. I remember when Flash was at version 4, you had nothing to push people to use it. However, when Flash 5 appeared, and those web games became somewhat popular, Flash based games were made, and believe it or not, this is what pushed Flash. And with Flash 6-7 where video playback became good compared to other player, and the cross-browser and somewhat cross-platform (at the time), and fast loading (unlike Java and real player) made it very attractive to make web applications, and video/audio players and pushed it to what it is now. I expect the same from Silverlight.
Yeah the wikipedia page didn't really help. But the way you explained it makes it seem more as a media delivery medium then what I originally assumed which was some kind of search engine thingy.
