TechAddress

Make Digg Count…With AddToAny

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:32:26 +0000

AddToAny, maker of easy-sharing and feed subscription widgets of the ShareThis and AddThis variety, gets a power boost today.

The new version of the utility involves an easily navigable tabbed interface, visible tallies of page promotion made with the social bookmarking services Digg and Delicious, prioritized placement of some services over others, and a so-called “Color Chooser” to customize the look of the device. Better to adapt to certain website stylings, for sure. An official AddToAny WordPress plugin also made its debut recently.

The plugin and customization options are certain to draw the favor of many publishers wishing for a multifunctional gadget that can conform to their own designs. A standard delivery might suit many users, but some editors will surely appreciate what’s now available.

Among the functions involved in the new release, meanwhile, is a more industrious email sharing option, with links to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and AOL Mail (along with the standard manual email option that is more or less ubiquitous across the Web); a real-time count of Digg and Delicious activity, if/when applicable; and an elementary guide to bookmarking a page to the user’s preferred browser.

Finally, as a kind of cherry-on-top, AddToAny has chosen to participate in the Open Share Icon collective. Names like Shareaholic, Me.dium, NowPublic, and SmugMug are listed among the support base. In short, the OSI is an attempt to establish a trademark-free alternative to the ShareThis graphic. A bit of visual and philosophical competition, if you will.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

Clearspring Widget Platform Buys Social Sharing Service AddThis

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:35:29 +0000

Source:Mashable!

Peter Gabriel and other backers of the free-streaming, ad-supported, as well as paid-for download service We7 already convinced Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI to provide some of their respective catalogues to the effort. Now the service has signed The Orchard, an international distributor with connections to more than 14,000 artists and over 1.3 million tracks.

The way in which tracks are being issued through We7 is not certain. Immediate availability of content is definitely not proving to be the case at present, as a quick search for material listed among The Orchard’s repertoire of artists shows a great number of absences. The same goes for the major companies noted earlier.

But if We7 co-founder and CEO Steve Purdham’s assessment of additions soon to be made is any indication, the service’s full launch is expected occur “in the coming months,” ensuring that the future will look richer than today. Probably, anyway. The wait will either be treacherous or easygoing, depending on one’s current assessment of the We7 business model.

Seeing as how We7 offers music rights holders the ability to offer streaming music as well as free (ad-supported) and paid-for downloads, one might think it to be striving to be a come-one-come-all type venue. Whatever fashion the consumer wants their music, in other words. But the availability of content is far from thorough, and the somewhat strange juxtaposition of paid and ad-supported downloads might make for an uneven experience.

Then again, if it is payment for songs that you wish to avoid, We7 can provide for such demand. Granted, the amount of popular content needs to be dramatically increased if We7 is to have any chance at amassing a substantial audience, but if one is to take the company’s abovementioned statement into account, that objective will eventually be realized.

When all is said and done, if we’re to draw any comparisons with the most recent free music newsmaker (MySpace), We7 will be something that resembles the social network’s opposite. Meaning music will be the primary attention getter, with friendly features tagging alongside.

Source:Mashable!

Clearspring, a fairly well-financed widget platform and advertising network has announced today the purchase of AddThis, the producer of one of the most popular widgets for allowing Web content to be easily shared on a variety of services like Digg, Del.icio.us, and Facebook. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

Clearspring’s mission is naturally to serve as large an audience as possible, and the acquisition of AddThis certainly helps to expand the purview of its newfound parent and proprietor. AddThis is a bookmarking and sharing utility that has been adopted by a range of third parties, including media outlets such as Time, Fox, ABC, and CBS. MySpace is also listed as a client, making its reach quite notable indeed.

Of course, in buying AddThis, Clearspring itself now faces the competition of ShareThis, a service with a similarly broad base of use. And, as Kara Swisher of BoomTown notes, the fact that neither Clearspring, with a claimed $10 million in annual sales, nor AddThis, with “negligible revenue,” together make a profitable collection of services, it’s not yet certain where where their businesses stand.

Market share is clearly the key pursuit at the moment, with hopes that advertising revenue, grouped with data gleaned from interaction with Clearspring’s widgets and the AddThis component, will follow in kind.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

MadKast Raises $300K For Link Sharing Widget

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:30:03 +0000

Source:Techcrunch
The first TechStars company to launch, MadKast has raised a $300,000 series A round of financing from EONBusiness Venture Capital and several Angel investors in California and Colorado. Another TechStars company, EventVue, closed their own round of funding last week.
MadKast is an embeddable widget that lets you easily share links with your friends on any […]

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.