Microsoft have today lauched Microsoft PopFly, but what is it? and how can it help you?

Read below for some Questions and Answers gatherd from the PopFly Website.

What is Popfly?
Popfly is the fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages, and applications. Popfly consists of two parts:

1. Popfly Creator is a set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups.
2. Popfly Space is an online community of creators where you can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.

For more information, see the Overview Page.

What’s Microsoft’s motivation for releasing Popfly?
Popfly is another piece in our company-wide outreach in helping non-professional developers build everything from Xbox games to Robotics to custom Web applications using Windows Home Server. Popfly becomes the online home for building and sharing all types of non-professional projects, from static Web pages to mashups, to game mods.

Is Popfly free?
Yes, Popfly is free, but some 3rd party blocks services may require a subscription fee.

Can I build or share commercial applications using Popfly?
Yes, but some blocks are restricted to non-commercial use only.

What problem is Popfly Creator trying to solve?
Popfly Creator tools are designed to enable you to create Web experiences without being a programmer. Connecting services on the Web is as easy as drawing a line between two blocks. Popfly creator also enables you to create static Web pages and even insert custom mashups directly into your static page.

What problem is Popfly Space trying to solve?
Popfly Space is a social network designed to connect the millions of non-professional creators in the world who work on everything from mashups to game development to hardware hacks. Users can build and share projects using Popfly Creator, or for more advanced users, Popfly Space provides an easy way to upload and share Visual Studio Express projects to the world. For JavaScript/CSS/HTML developers, it provides a free playground to build and share fun Web experiences. It’s the YouTube for applications where you can discover, rate, comment, and remix everything.

Why did you call it Popfly?
Well, left to our own devices we would have called “Microsoft Visual Mashup Creator Express, May 2007 Community Tech Preview Internet Edition,” but instead we asked some folks for help and they suggested some cool names and we all liked Popfly.