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Clearspring unveils ‘smart’ content sharing service

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Widget network Clearspring Technologies has released the next generation of its free Launchpad sharing service. The announcement comes just one year after the initial release of the Launchpad offering. Since that time, nearly 18,000 additional publishers have signed on to use Launchpad, including most of the world’s leading media companies such as Fox Broadcasting, NBC Universal, and Time Warner.

The Launchpad upgrade includes new features to give content publishers the ability to better determine the look and feel of the sharing menu while also providing end users with a more personalized content sharing experience.

The new service includes a significantly improved sharing menu that publishers can now customize by color scheme, destination and size. Launchpad’s new liquid sizing feature alters the menu size to automatically fit the publisher’s widget content as well as to fit widget landing areas predetermined by social destinations. The free service also gives content publishers the ability to determine the social destinations they want to promote for each content element.

Originally posted on October 28, 2008 @ 6:44 pm

Clearspring now top widget network worldwide, according to comScore

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Clearspring Technologies, the widget network connecting publishers and advertisers to audiences on the social web, experienced a 59 percent increase in worldwide usage of its sharing service between August and September. The company attributes this increase to a growing social trend of communicating by sharing content online, as well as its acquisition of social bookmarking leader AddThis, and newly formed partnerships with leading media publishers such as MetroLyrics and SnagFilms.

According to comScore, Clearspring logged 254 million unique visitors worldwide in September, easily outdistancing its nearest competitor by 93 million visitors. In addition to ranking Clearspring as the global leader in the widget market, comScore revealed that the company also extended its lead by 34 million in the U.S. market in September, growing 43 percent and reaching over 101 million unique visitors in the United States.

Clearspring’s easy-to-use services allows people to share Web pages, photos, videos, movie trailers, news, sports updates, trivia quizzes, games, and music with friends and provides a new set of opportunities for advertisers to engage more often with their customers online – specifically on the social web. Clearspring’s product offering includes two approaches to advertising with widgets:

• Widgets served as ads through Clearspring’s platform.
• Advertisements within a widget.

Originally posted on October 28, 2008 @ 7:12 am

Userplane, JS-Kit to offer widgets to 900,000 communities

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Userplane announced that it will offer JS-Kit’s Ratings service through Userplane’s distribution channels. JS-Kit will add Userplane’s Webchat application to its product suite, which includes; Comments, Reviews, Ratings, and Polls.

Webchat and Ratings are both incredibly light weight, simple to install, easy to customize, and provided free with advertising or under a low cost ASP model.

Webchat from Userplane is a turnkey chat solution that enables real-time text messaging and voice/video communication for community, dating, corporate and collaborative websites. Easily integrated and fully scalable, JS-Kit will be using the Userplane Minichat, a complementary component of Webchat, configured to display a single line of text or an entire conversation block. The clickable Minichat pane can be embedded on virtually any website, providing a window into the current action in the chat room.

JS-Kit’s Ratings widget uncovers and displays a site’s top content by allowing visitors to rate merchandise items, services, pictures, blog entries or any other objects on the site. It enables publishers to use their best content to keep visitors engaged and collect data about the audiences’ tastes and preferences.

“Both Userplane and JS-Kit bring interaction to websites and, incredibly, our product offerings are 100% complementary,” said Sam Wick, GM of Userplane and VP of AOL. “This cross distribution strategy allows our respective teams to expand the features of our core suite and focus on more cutting-edge work.”

“As IT budgets tighten in 2009, web publishers will be able to turn to our low cost, yet feature rich product suite, to achieve their objectives,” said Khris Loux, Chief Executive Officer, JS-Kit. “With this collaboration, publishers will also benefit by working with companies they know will be around. They can enjoy one-stop shopping with either of us, and they’ll get familiar with how our technologies work and can leverage that experience with any of our apps. It’s a great solution for everyone.”

Ads from Userplane’s social media ad network will flow through the Minichat product, providing monetization for both companies on any ads distributed through their use of the apps.

About Userplane

www.userplane.com

Userplane™ is the world’s premier social software provider for online communities. The company’s leading-edge applications enable instant communication, content and functionality for social networks – and support millions of users daily. Recently ranked as one of the 30 largest ad networks, Userplane offers a revenue-sharing solution that serves up half a billion impressions daily and reaches nearly 50M users monthly. A pioneer of the social web, Userplane was founded in 2001. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL based in Santa Monica, California.

About JS-Kit

www.js-kit.com

JS-Kit provides ultra-lightweight, feature-specific content and community services for any site via a hosted platform. The company’s services offer unparalleled ease of implementation and a compelling combination of power and affordability. JS-Kit empowers publishers by delivering must-have features, promoting rich interactivity and building community and customer knowledge.

Originally posted on October 20, 2008 @ 6:08 am

JS-Kit raises $3.6 million funding

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Social widget provider JS-Kit announced that it has raise $3.6 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Altos Ventures with participation from Series A investor TEF3.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the JS-Kit team for their unwavering commitment and hard work. I’d also like to thank our friends and partners who use JS-Kit on their sites and send us detailed feedback for improving the product – your passion fuels our motivation to continue delivering great products,” Khris Loux, CEO, said.

The new round of funds will be used for expansion of the company’s development team and ensure continued innovation and stability for its web publishers.

Originally posted on October 14, 2008 @ 1:49 pm

Widgetbox, Yardbarker join forces to power Sports Blog Network

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Widgetbox and Yardbarker Network (YBN) inked a partnership to connect YBN’s 600 bloggers with a single widget. With its boisterous community of sports-oriented bloggers, including top athletes from an array of professional leagues, YBN will power the Widgetbox Sports Channel in the new Widgetbox Blog Network, and is the first exclusive channel provider for Widgetbox.

Widgetbox launched the Widgetbox Blog Network in September, leveraging its wide reach of over 1.4 million websites, including 200,000 blogs, and 68 million monthly unique viewers to facilitate connections and community and help its members drive traffic and exposure to their blogs. Through the creation of 32 vertical channels, each of which is united by a single widget, Widgetbox helps bloggers derive more value for themselves, their readers and advertisers.

Originally posted on October 8, 2008 @ 10:30 am