Have you seen the new Internet Explorer 8 video that’s floating around YouTube? It’s officially my favorite new video (of the week, that is…I favorite a lot of stuff). Really, this video is so NOT the typical the marketing drivel you might expect. It’s just a humorous take on the “History of the Internet,” and features everything from the Ask a Ninja guy talking about Web 1.0 clip art to hilarious virals (before they were called virals) like the Hamster Dance. 

Seriously, I laughed out loud more than once. Click here to check this out.

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Microsoft and Google working together? Yep. It seems Google-owned YouTube is running Microsoft Silverlight in CBS’s dedicated channel for March Madness. (For those of you outside the States, March Madness is when everyone goes crazy over basketball).

In the CBS YouTube Channel located here: http://www.youtube.com/marchmadness there’s an embedded Sliverlight player which appears to be just the same as the one running on the free March Madness on Demand site.

This new Silverlight-powered channel also represents the first time YouTube has ever been able to offer live TV to its audience, which is a big deal since YouTube has been missing out lately on some pretty major live TV events. The Obama inauguration comes to mind, for example. Although YouTube used Akamai last year to stream its own user festival, we hadn’t seen the site showing any other live TV/live video footage since.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, go now. According to Dan Frommer of Business Insider,  it’s “the best Web video we've ever seen.” We totally agree.

Today, at the MIX09 conference, attendees were told that the latest version of Internet Explorer has been released and is now available for download. No longer a beta, IE8 is ready for public consumption. There have been a number of changes made to this browser which represent what has been a significant overhaul to one of the oldest web browsers out there - and one that’s still very much a staple in many people’s lives, both at home and at work.

If you haven’t been testing the beta, today you can download the the updated browser and see what you’ve been missing. There are several new features being introduced, including a private browsing mode, a visual search tool, colorful tabs, a smart bar, as well as interactive features like web slices and accelerators.

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The Facebook IM chat client for Windows Mobile phones has recently been updated to version 2.1. With this application, you can access Facebook from your handheld and instant message with your online Facebook friends. Facebook IM also lets you upload photos and videos directly from your device to Facebook as well as update your status. And the app alerts you when you have new chat message notifications, new inbox messages, and more. Since it’s integrated with the mobile website for Facebook at m.facebook.com, you can easily follow up on the notifications you receive by browsing to the mobile site. The application is touch-friendly and requires .NET CF 3.5 to run.

Facebook IM is available now on the XDA-Developers forum – you can download it from here.

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During this morning’s keynote speech at the MIX09 conference, Microsoft made several announcements about updates, new releases, and enhancements to the Microsoft web technologies. Scott Guthrie came on stage to deliver a keynote speech where he talked about the new version of Silverlight 3 as well as the release of Expression Blend 3 Preview  and updates to Windows Azure.

If you weren’t able to attend the conference or watch the live stream at live.visitmix.com, here’s what you missed:

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