Start.com Developer Center is launched! (or at least the web site is up)

It looks like it is possible to create your own start.com site, develop "gadgets" for it, etc. Go directly here: https://start.com/developer/

Here is also some documentation on the new Atlas runtime: https://start.com/developer/atlasruntime.aspx

While you are there, check out the infrastructure for Atlas bindings. But what I like most is the new seamless AJAX-based programming model - for example here is how you can create a batch of XMLGet requests. No more fiddling with arrays of XMLHTTP objects, checking their state, etc.

batchRequest = Web.Network.createBatch([priority[,objContext]])

// Add as many requests
batchRequest.add(networkType,strUrl,objContext,p_strPostArgs,p_objHeaders,p_flags)
batchRequest.execute(p_fnCallback);
batchRequest.abort() // Abort the requests

Lots of fun. I remember the days where I browsed the web in Mosaic for the first time. I thought that loading the images in background was cool... now I can do easily the same with some easy DHTML code!

[update: More info at  https://microsoftgadgets.com/ and https://spaces.msn.com/members/siteexperts/]