SOMEWHAT FRANK

Video: Clearspring Widget Startup Explained

Clearspring, a Virginia-based startup, offers a number of widget solutions for publishers and advertisers. I got to catchup with Clearspring Community Manager and genunine good guy, Justin Thorp as he "tells all" about the widget making startup. Is Clearspring soon to be acquired? Watch the video and maybe you will find out.

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Knols Announced, Clearspring Widget Ad Network, YouTube Partnership Program, Mahalo Social Search & Coding Monsters

Photo of the Week: I witnessed the Penny Harvest first hand this past week in Rockefeller Plaza in New York City as they look to raise 100 million pennies for charity. The river of pennies was pretty amazing - I have never seen so many pennies in one place.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 12.16.2007

Widgets Going Wild on Facebook, Freewebs & Yourminis

Widgets are hot. Widgets are sexy. Widgets, widgets, widgets. I previously have covered the widget craze but widgets now have a few new promoters.

With the Facebook open platform announcement last week there have been lots of new widgets and applications added to Facebook each day. Personally, I have already added Flickr, Slide and Twitter widgets to my Facebook profile. Nick O'Neill, who helped bring TECH cocktail to DC, decided to launch a new blog called All Facebook which will be covering these widget updates and other Facebook news, so you might want to check it out.

Freewebs, the Silver Springs, Maryland-based company that offers an open web personal publishing platform, has added a Widget Bank to their catalog of website building tools. The Freewebs Widget Bank gives members access to thousands of widgets that can be embedded directly onto a web site. Widgets can be added into Freewebs sites without having to copy, cut or paste code. Widget Bank will constantly update its extensive collection and include games, clocks, RSS feed readers, maps, video players and much more.  Freewebs has created its own widgets but has also reached to third party sites like YouTube, Widgetbox, RockYou, Miniclip, Gizmoz and others.

Yourminis has also taken an interesting approach which I have previously covered but wanted to reiterate. Basically, they are offering widgets that work on your home page, are snaggable for your blog or web site and extendable to your desktop. It is a widget trifecta!

Here are a couple of other blogs that are good widget resources:

Widgify - by Hooman Radfer of the widget marketplace Clearspring
SexyWidget - by Lawrence Coburn of distributed rating RateItAll.com
Widgets Labs - by Derek Anderson
StickiWidgets 

The web is definitely widgetizing. Can you dig it?