Company

Widgadget

20-Word Description

Widgadget is the community portal for widget creation and distribution. It wishes to popularize widgets for users, bloggers and brands.

CEO’s Pitch

Widgadget is designed to help users, bloggers, brands and agencies spread their content exponentially, to get more websites/blogs traffic and to improve brand loyalty. It enables all users to see the best widgets and to create their own in three steps:

The registered user enters their feeds, then, he or she designs the widgets with sizes, colors, images, logo, titles, etc., and finally, adds information that enables the widget to get well-indexed in the gallery (titles, description, tags, etc.). Once created, the widget can be spread throughout social networks, blogs or desktops. The statistics allow every user to track word of mouth effect.

Mashable’s Take

Widgadget lets you create and distribute customizable widgets for whatever you want to promote, such as your website, blog, company, product, service, etc. Widgets can be created in Flash or Java, depending on where you want to use them. You can also embed your widgets on many different platforms, such as social networking profiles, blogging platforms (Blogger, Wordpress, etc.), websites and start pages such as Netvibes, iGoogle, Pageflakes, etc.

There are several competitors in this viral marketing widget space such as Gydget, Gigya, and Clearspring, which have all carved their own niches. For example, Gydget focuses mostly on the music industry, so most of their widgets promote musicians. All of these platforms provide easy to design widget tools and also a distribution channel with ways to monetize and analyze your viral marketing campaigns.

Widgadget offers all of the same core features without any major new features or niches, so it’s difficult to separate them from the pack. One of the things they do well is their customization for each member depending on what type content is being created and distributed. For example, their service is different for members creating widgets for personal use, business, blogs, or advertising for clients. Also, while creating widgets, the service’s performance seemed to be slightly better than the experiences I’ve had on some services such as Gydget for example.

Being able to track each widget and analyze the traffic and popularity of each creation could prove useful for future campaigns. In addition, being able to view all of the different widgets that you’ve created on one screen is very helpful as well. However, I was not thrilled with the inability to add any audio or video content to widgets, which is a feature many of their competitors have. This is significant because some studies have proven that some of the most successful viral marketing campaigns usually (NOT always) include some form of audio or video content. Being able to embed audio content like a song snippet, narration clip or video from YouTube has become a standard option these days.

Here’s a sample widget created on Widgadget in minutes for Mashable.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials

Source:Mashable!

Yahoo has announced that it will be shutting down Yahoo Live, the company’s attempt to cash in on the live broadcasting trend popularized by startups like UStream and Justin.tv. According to the Yahoo Live blog, “… we constantly evaluate our early-stage products and sometimes have to make the hard decision to move on, in order to continue exploring new territory and developing new products.”

The service first debuted in February this year, with a few novel features like offering up simultaneous multiple streams (though competitors quickly followed). Nonetheless, live video isn’t cheap – especially when you’re on the scale of a company like Yahoo. After persistent rumors that it would enter the live video space, Google said that it would not be adding the feature to YouTube anytime soon because of the huge bandwidth costs that would ensue. And Google is in a much better financial position than Yahoo at the moment.

So, while the shutdown of Live could be viewed as a Yahoo problem – the company is in the midst of layoffs with its stock trading near multi-year lows – there has to be some concern over the implications it has for live streaming on the whole. While some of the startups in the space have shown decent traffic growth over the past year, if Yahoo wasn’t able to attract a big enough audience to make it work, you have to wonder if the other, considerably smaller companies pursuing the niche will find enough users to make a real business of it.

On the other hand, the shutdown could simply be a part of broader cost-cutting at Yahoo, and not necessarily a verdict on the state of live video. Allen Stern reports that the company might have also shuttered Yahoo Kickstart, a career site for students and recent graduates.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:The Daily Poll: What’s Your Level of Interest in Lifecasting?Yahoo Answers Dominates Q & A - No Wonder Google Gave UpRIAA Asks for Lower RoyaltiesYahoo to Close Podcast DirectoryRumor: Yahoo Soon To Offer DRM Free MP3sThe Daily Poll: Live Video – Who Will Win?The Daily Poll: Catching Up Socially

Ustream is broadcasting the Republican National Convention live (as I type) and Google has embedded its coverage into the Elections section of Google News.

Why is this news? Because apparently this is the first time Google has embedded a non-Google service into one of its core pages. At least, that’s what Ustream is telling us and we have no evidence with which to disagree.

You can watch the full live coverage below.

It was bound to happen: this afternoon it would appear the Internet is witnessing a live child birth in the video embedded above. While several child births have infamously been tweeted in near real-time before, this is the first time (that I can recall) live video has been provided, though it was apparently attempted last year amidst a mediocore wi-fi connection.

From what we know, the user’s name is Stephen Heywood, and the stream is being broadcast from West Pennsylvania. Heywood is apparently well known on UStream, and his viewers asked him to live stream the birth of daughter Samantha.

We wish the family all the best, but would love to know what you think about the pandora’s box of issues that this opens up. Sound off in the comments.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Twitter Live Birth BloggingXanga Fined $1 Million For Violating Children’s PrivacySecond Life Child Pornography Investigation Under WayCrisp Grows Child Saftey Technologies with Acquisition of IMSaferThe Saga of the MySpace Kid [smcb]$100 Laptop: Get Your Own!SMCB: Google Stops Protecting Pedophiles

Google is under fire today over reports claiming the company failed to include any data for Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan on Google maps.  Worse, some reports suggest that once the fighting broke out between Russia and Georgia, all relevant information about the latter was wiped from Google maps.

According to the Azerbaijan Press agency, all “the relevant maps went blank as soon as fighting broke out.”  But Google contends that that assertion is simply false and it has not changed anything in quite some time.

“Google has not made any recent change to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in Google Maps,” the company said in a statement. “We do not have local data for those countries and that is why local details such as landmarks and cities do not appear.”

In response to even more public outcry, Google Maps product manager, Dave Barth, said Google failed to include relevant street and city information because it wasn’t satisfied with available map data.  But in an attempt to quell user distress, Barth said that Google would now input basic information about all of these countries instead of leave them blank.

And while some users are applauding Google for doing just that, I think it begs the question of whether or not Google should populate countries regardless of the quality of data, or if it should leave countries blank until it has the data necessary to make the maps as accurate as possible.

The way I see it, Google has no responsibility to its users to populate every country in the world if it feels it can’t provide them with the most accurate information available.  Along those lines, why would users even want data that Google feels isn’t the best on maps of countries that aren’t generally the most searched for in the world anyway?

As far as I’m concerned, maps should be kept blank if the data isn’t sufficient to populate them and if users don’t like it, well, that’s their problem.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Google Maps Hangs Up on Click-to-CallGoogle Offers Easy Embed Code for MapsCustom Icons for Google MapsGoogle Maps in (Almost) 3DVisualize Recent Edits to Google MapsAdSense is Coming to Google MapsGoogle Maps Street View

Source:Mashable!

Is Google-owned YouTube backing out of live streaming video because it’s too expensive? It would appear so, at least according to Michael Learmonth of Silicon Alley Insider. While it’s hard to fathom that any service would require more capital than Google is willing and able to spend, according to Learmonth’s sources, the cost of adding live video would be enormous – a 20 to 25% increase in the company’s infrastructure costs if only 10% of YouTube users adopted the service.

Considering YouTube’s huge user base in comparison to startups like UStream, Mogulus, and Justin.tv, that certainly sounds plausible. There’s also the fact that YouTube is still sorting out its own monetization strategy, so adding more costs and advertising inventory certainly isn’t a priority on the march towards profitability.

Meanwhile, YouTube staying out of the space should be cause for celebration at the live video startups. In a poll we conducted back when YouTube was seemingly poised to launch a live video offering, 69% of our readers indicated that YouTube would likely become the most popular video streaming service. On the other hand, Google staying out of the market also sends a statement that they don’t necessarily think live video is worth an investment at this time.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Pirate Bay Cancels Plans for BOiNKSwarmcast Moves Into Live StreamingVeodia Streams Live from Your Blogustream.tv Aims to be YouTube for WebcastsMadonna Concert Live on MSNcomScore Releases Video Streaming StudyThe Pirate Bay to Launch YouTube Killer

UStream, the free video streaming service, has added announced more social features very akin to the features YouTube and MySpace have available. Amongst the new features you’ll recognize, they’re adding bulletins, subscriptions, and followers (as well as a few management tools to go along with).

These additions make the social features somewhat more complete on the system. Before there was only the ability to subscribe to other producers and maintain your subscriptions, but with the addition the bulletins features (and the other management tasks relating to your followers), has the potential to really cement the developing community at the site with bi-directional communication.

As those of us who have decided to wade in hip-deep to Twitter and FriendFeed know, just as important as the tools to connect are the tools to block. Included in the update is just that functionality, which not only prevents you from seeing their updates but them from seeing yours as well.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Ustream’s Live Coverage of ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money” PremiereuStream.tv Beta 2 Launches Tomorrow (Screenshots)Ustream to Begin Testing Overlay Ads in Live Video StreamsUStream: Blogworld and the Plain White T’sRumor: Microsoft Wants To Buy Ustream.TVUStream Coverage of World Cyber Games FinalsUstream & Intel Live Coverage of Developer Forum Featuring Dr. Gordon Moore

Qoof is a video commerce startup that offers a widget eTailors and publishers can use to publish product videos on their sites. Founded by Richard Kligman in 2006, Qoof’s operations and team of over 10 employees are based out of Bet Shemesh.
Kligman first came up with the […]

Source:Mashable!
It is easy to see by all the headlines today that Adobe, Google, and to a lesser degree Yahoo, are getting all the love. As Stan Schroeder posted earlier this morning, Adobe is getting together with Google and Yahoo to put some new technology in place that will make Flash enabled Web sites indexable by […]

Source:Mashable!
Live broadcasting service UStream has just rolled out a number of new upgrades and shared their latest usage statistics.
The most notable new feature, which we first reported last month, is the introduction of overlays to everyone, so broadcasters can add visual information to their shows – much in the way television shows put […]

According to Patrick Ross of UstreamTV, the overlays will be able to be […]