Microsoft’s Silverlight technology is making waves this month with two very high profile events. First, Silverlight was the technology of choice for NBC’s streaming Olympic video coverage on NBCOlympics.com. The site racked up 70 million page views on Friday August 8th, and 4.8 million people watched 3.1 million video streams on Saturday. These are impressive numbers for Silverlight’s big debut. However, there were a number of critics that commented on the frustrating delays for online coverage, as well as the lack of full screen support and the size of the windows.

Silverlight is also the official software and HD web content provider for this week’s Democratic National Convention. Although many networks are offering streaming video from the convention, the official site is the only one showing HD video content. The HD is quite impressive, and was even dubbed as “awesome” by the Washington Post.

Even with these two high-profile events, I’m not sure it will allow Microsoft to catch up to the massive install base Adobe Flash Player already has, but it certainly brings Silverlight closer to being a true contender.