Sphere, the blog search engine that launched in May 2006, has been steadily disseminating and connecting the web via the "Sphere It" contextual widget. The widget has grown in popularity as it helps readers offer content recommendations from the blogosphere, as well as related content from current sites. It ultimately drives page views both for the author site as well as the entire blogosphere. The widget can be seen in the blogosphere on a number of popular blogs (i.e. TechCrunch, GigaOm, Andrew Sullivan Daily Dish, Publishing 2.0, Cool Hunting, Captains Quarters, Mathew Ingram, Read/Write Web, Battelle Searchblog, Venture Beat, O'Reilly Radar, Techdirt, Infectious Greed, etc).
Sphere's contextual widget is not only popping up in the blogosphere, Sphere has a number of partners (i.e. AOL, Market Watch, NYT, ZDNet and TIME among others) representing nearly a billion article page views, which means Sphere is both reaching a much broader audience of Internet readers than just the early adopter tech crowd. Ultimately, Sphere and its "Sphere It" widget helps readers discover new blogs, and in the process drives page views.
The Sphere team was recently gracious enough to create a version of the
widget for Somewhat Frank. It was added over the weekend and can be
found at the end of each article. Upon clicking the "Sphere It" link an overlay dialog box should appear with recommendations and related content as shown in the screen-shot below.
With the "Sphere It" contextual widget you can be reading Somewhat Frank and click the widget for related content. You can then click one of the recommended blogs in the lower left quadrant to jump to Read/Write Web or GigaOm and then read one of their articles and click their "Sphere It" widget to bounce to the next site. I hope you enjoy bouncing around the web discovering new sites and content with the help of Sphere and it's "Sphere It" contextual widget.
TrackBacks
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/431977/16740210
» Death to DRM, Future of RSS, Zillow Relaunches, Blog Search Wars from Somewhat Frank
Photo of the week: robobunny by Courtney Brooke. Happy Easter. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 04.08.07 DRM-Free MusicEMI announced DRM-free music earlier in the week and now Microsoft is hinting at doing the same. Is this the death of DRM? 500 [Read More]
Tracked on Apr 8, 2007 3:09:41 PM
Is Sphere's contextual widget an open tool? Why I clicked "Contact Sphere" and then they send me a mail says their site was crashed?
Posted by: dbai | Friday, April 27, 2007 at 01:53 PM