StickiWidgets

Yahoo! Live Channel Guide Google gadget allows you to easily browse currently broadcasting Yahoo! Live channels. The list is sorted by popularity (most number of viewers). Clicking on the channel image will open a popup of the channel preview. The channel name will open the full channel view in a new browser/tab with text and video chat capabilities.

Add to an iGoogle page or any webpage that allows JavaScript. The Google gadget platform allows for some basic configurations for the webpage gadget; title, width, height and border.

Yahoo! Live Channel Guide Google Gadget for your webpage

It’s been a long awaited announcement and it’s finally come. Clearspring has opened The Clearspring Community Platform and it’s free. We’ve had the luck of being part of the preview and it looks great. There are still things to add and some things to tweak but it’s a very polished system. For more information, check out the feature list, documentation, blog and forum.

A few things we really like about the platform. It was easy to add and configure a widget into the system. The interface was clean and stepped you through the process. Once the widget is added the power of the platform begins to show. The “Grab it!” feature allows anyone to easily get or push the widget to numerous web properties and social networks (11 at last count) or you can grab the code itself.

In addition to viral distribution of the widget through the widget, the Clearspring system can also publish the widget to existing widget galleries and start pages; currently Google Gadgets Gallery, Live Gadget Gallery , Netvibes Widget Library and Pageflakes Flake Chooser.

To wrap up all this widget goodness Clearspring tracks and reports on the widgets. This is great to actually be able to know how a widget is performing and where. There are 5 reporting categories and with more detailed reports within each.

1. Views: how many times the widget has been viewed
2. Unique views: how many individual users viewed the widget
3. Locations: where the widget is placed
4. Viral hubs: where the widget is being spread from
5. Geographic: where in the world are users viewing from

For developers there is also the beginnings of an API. It’s currently very sparse but it’s a good sign to see Clearspring developing an API for their platform.

And… If you’re large (lucky) enough to need an enterprise-class widget platform, there is the Premium Platform to consider.

While it’s not perfect and there a few more things we would like to see, Hooman and his team have done a great job overall and we look forward to more from Clearspring.

Clearspring and NBC Universal announced today that NBCU will be using the Clearspring widget syndication and distribution platform to distribute widgetized NBCU content. The initial launch will include content from “Dateline,” “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” “Meet the Press” and “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” as well as content from NBC Sports, DotComedy.com and iVillage.com, according to the press release.

Plans are to expand on the available content and allow for “deeper engagement for fans of NBCU content.” Users will be able to personalize the widgets and post them to their personal blogs, social networking profiles, web sites, start pages, etc.

Clearspring is positioning itself to be the leading widget syndication and distribution platform.

Some highlights:

• today’s announcement with NBCU
• CBS back in May
• 3 billion widgets served in May (currently over 4 billion)
• announced $5.5 million in its second round of funding back in March
• existing widgets and partnerships (NBA [Players, Scoreboard], The Colts, March Madness)

NBCU appears to understand the changing landscape and is embracing it. They have been pushing their programing to broadband, mobile, iTunes and more. Back in March, NBC.com announced social-networking tools and the ability for their viewers to share NBC videos. This partnership with Clearspring illustrates that they are taking a lead in the new digital media landscape.

“We want to create a fun, shared experience for our users and understand their needs as they interact with our content beyond our online properties.” said Sab Kanaujia, Vice President, Digital Product Strategy & Development, NBC Universal.

Additional Coverage:

• Widgify
• Sexy Widget
• Read/WriteWeb
• Mashable