clearspring - the widget network.

Launchpad Converting Web content into widgets just got easier. Read more		Ad Widgets Get more bang for your media buck. Read more		OpenSocial Clearspring to support OpenSocial. Read more
Widget Spotlight		Dev Tip		Resources

November 2007: 1,700 New Developers

With the holidays fast approaching, we have a lot to celebrate here at Clearspring. Since our last newsletter in late September, we've released two new product offerings and several new service features, added over 1,700 developers to the Clearspring community and witnessed the market adoption of widgets grow at a phenonemal pace. Check out what's new, and don't hesitate to drop us a note with your comments, feedback or ideas.

Clearspring Launchpad

On October 29^th, Clearspring announced Launchpad, a free developer toolset designed to dramatically reduce the time and effort required to convert digital content into easily sharable widgets. Launchpad gives developers a way to easily embed a sharing menu or button onto their Web sites. These menus and buttons let end users quickly recognize Web content that can be shared as widgets and makes it easy for them to post the 'widgetized' content to their social network, start page or blog.

Launchpad Highlights:

• Convert an entire web site into widgets in 20 minutes or less.
• Multiple distribution options - end users can save widgets to popular social bookmarking services like Digg and Technorati, email them to friends or embed the sharing menus or buttons into existing widgets.
• Customizable sharing menus to match your web site's existing look and feel.
• Powerful analytics and reporting tools to track widget views, time spent, placements, unique visitors, interactions and more.

Clearspring for Advertisers

Last week at the ad:Tech conference in New York, we announced a new service called Clearspring for Advertisers that delivers widgets as online ads. Our new ad-served format enables marketers to replace standard-sized online banner ads with interactive, portable widgets.

Clearspring for Advertisers provides a compelling mechanism that allows marketers to engage in continuous, permission-based conversations with their audience. The viral capability of widgets provides a vehicle for messages to spread across the Web and lets end users establish themselves as advocates for their favorite products and brands. Sony Pictures Entertainment, The CW Television Network, Comedy Central, DreamWorks Animation, and Warner Bros. have all recently used Clearspring for Advertisers.

Clearspring for Advertisers Highlights:

• Ad widgets work in place of standard IAB banner ads.
• Fully integrated with the top ad-serving systems, including DoubleClick and Mediaplex.
• Provides the ability to convert ad widgets into fully compatible Facebook applications.

Clearspring on OpenSocial

OpenSocial is a set of APIs proposed by Google to provide a common way for application developers to access social network user profiles, friend lists and activity information. Clearspring is encouraged by the potential of OpenSocial and plans to support these standards. In fact, we've been working with the APIs for a while and we'll continue to work closely with our social networking partners as they move to support OpenSocial. As these standards evolve, our developer community can count on Clearspring to do the work required to stay up to speed with the new APIs. And, since you're already signed up for this newsletter, you'll stay informed as these standards move forward.

Get more details on Clearspring's approach to OpenSocial
Learn more about the OpenSocial standard

Widget Spotlight

This month we're featuring a "badge" widget. As the name conveys, these are widgets used by people to endorse their affinity for an online community. Badges give your community a way to promote content or messages by placing it on their blogs or social networks. The example below was built by our friends at TalkShoe.

The TalkShoe service enables people to create, join or listen to live conversations online. They developed the badges to help users promote their favorite discussions on the TalkShoe network. Since they went live this summer, the TalkShoe badge widget doubled its placements roughly every seven days and was viewed 35 times more often on their members' social pages than on www.TalkShoe.com.

TalkShoe encourages developers to use to their open Web Services platform and well-documented APIs. Learn more at talkshoeapi.ning.com.

Dev Tip - Custom CSS

When using Launchpad services, remember that you are able to define a custom stylesheet (CSS) that complements the layout and design of your site. This is accomplished by defining the customCSS attribute of your Launchpad call in JavaScript.

Note: You must specify a valid absolute path when defining a URL for image assets being used or called in your custom CSS.

Additional information regarding Launchpad customization can be found at: http://www.clearspring.com/docs/tech/apis/launchpad#appearance

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.
• Looking for talented developers, or are you one yourself? Check out the Marketplace.
• Our blog, your source for Clearspring updates, feature news and related stuff.