When Newsweek named 2007 the “Year of the Widget” they were dead on. But, as the saying
goes, “that was then, this is now.” From early last year Clearspring witnessed solid evidence that the magazine's prediction would be accurate, and after serving over 15
billion widgets between May and December, we had validated their forecast. 2007 was indeed a very good year for widgets. Of course, “that was then.” So, what's on the horizon
for 2008?
2008: The Year of the Smart Ad
Recent reports from JPMorgan, TNS Media Intelligence, ZenithOptimedia and eMarketer predict
strong growth for online advertising in 2008. The JPMorgan report states that “better monetization techniques” from online publishers will aid the projected increase. To this
regard Clearspring believes that a new category of ‘smart' online ads – powered with viral ad sharing capabilities – will help drive the online advertising category to meet
these projections.
Once again Clearspring technology enables an important trend, ending 2007 by introducing two exciting new (and smart) advertising-related offerings; leveraging the viral
sharing and portability capabilities of widgets: The Widget Ad Network and SnaggableAds.
The Widget Ad Network
In December, Clearspring announced the beta release of the Widget Ad Network, a service where brand advertisers can leverage the widget content from a growing list of the
world's leading content publishers, including IDG, The Huffington Post, the NHL, and Twentieth Century Fox Television. To learn more, go to www.clearspring.com/advertising/adnetwork.
SnaggableAds
Clearspring also announced an exclusive partnership with rich media ad leader PointRoll to introduce SnaggableAds, a brand new category of smart, online banner ads that can
be virally shared. Banner ads can now do much more than just link to the advertiser's web sites. They can be “snagged” by consumers and posted to their blog, start page or
social web site for others to see, grab and share. To learn more visit us at: http://www.clearspring.com/advertising/snaggableads.
Clearspring Widgets Now on the Desktop
Clearspring widgets can now be easily added to Mac OSX and Microsoft Vista desktops and to
other desktops with Yahoo! Widgets 4.5. Desktop widgets give end users access to digital content and functionality without having to open their browser.
Developers will be glad to know that the service menus on existing Clearspring widgets have been updated and are now fully desktop compatible. All of your widgets can now be
placed on the desktop. Try it yourself using the featured widget on our homepage: www.clearspring.com.
Widget Spotlight
Clearspring worked with CNN.com to launch their podcast widget. This popular widget feeds
general and business news audio clips from CNN.com. Users stay current with news and business stories updated regularly. Because CNN's strategy was to optimize relevance,
their widget was built with the capability to display either the ‘News' or ‘Business' tab as a default, depending on where it was placed for distribution. This same
configuration option is also available to end users. So now you can customize its appearance to match your own preferences. Go ahead and grab it (below) or check it out here:
http://www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/.
Dev Tip - Desktop Widgets
Building widgets for the desktop is easy and requires no extra downloads, libraries, or
development skills. However, for some widgets, the desktop adds an additional design consideration. When designing in either flash or HTML, remember to use _blank or _top as
the destination for your links. If this is not specified, your links might not open a browser window to view the content. For additional information on making your widgets
desktop friendly please reference http://www.clearspring.com/docs/tech/widget-
dev/container.
Additional Resources
A friendly reminder of some of the resources that can help you be successful with the
Clearspring Platform:
Documentation, including detailed info on all the features, APIs and even our FAQ.
Forums, for Help & Support, Product Feedback, and anything else.
