UPDATE: XboxFriendsWatch Gamercard Version 2 is now available!

[UPDATE: version 1.1 has been posted, performance improvements and an auto version checker now included.]

HALO 3 is out and my Xbox is now getting the love it truly deserves.  Multiplayer mode in HALO is a lot of fun and even more fun when you can play with friends.  Thus, a perfect opportunity was born to create a useful sidebar gadget.

I've recorded a demo on how the gadget works available on Channel 9 and you can download the gadget directly from my server, although I will be posting it to the Gadget Gallery shortly.

Just make sure that before you run the gadget you install Silverlight 1.0, otherwise the gadget will not work.

My data source for Xbox Live information is coming from Duncan Mackenzie's REST service and the UI is done completely in Silverlight 1.0.  This turned out to be a really fun project and the Sidebar hosting environment was a great place for a Silverlight application. 

One of the most obvious benefits is that within the Sidebar you can make cross-domain calls, no need for any server-side proxies.  You also gain access to certain System properties and a small data storage model all through the Gadget API.

I foresee more Silverlight-based Sidebar Gadgets in the future, I'm looking at you Twitter API...