SilverLight Plugin for Google Chrome Could be due soon

Videos on YouTube are currently streamed through Adobe Flash player but according to Om Malik, YouTube will be using the Microsoft Silverlight player on their website to stream live videos from March Madness, a popular men’s college basketball tournament.

YouTube, with a 43% market share in the online video space, has more than 100 million users in US alone so this CBS-YouTube-NCAA deal should help increase the overall installation base of Microsoft Silverlight plug-in.

Now Microsoft Silverlight plug-in is currently available for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari (on Mac) but this Silverlight – YouTube marriage, though temporary, could be a hint that Silverlight for Chrome may be available officially soon.

Here’s why – when you visit the YouTube page for March Madness using Google Chrome, you get a warning message saying "switch to a supported platform" with a bold mention of Internet Explorer. Google, for obvious reasons, won’t be feeling very happy promoting IE on their popular video site but if Microsoft can provide Silverlight support in Chrome, that should keep Google happy.