Data: Online, Iranians turning to Facebook during crisis
All the recent media coverage about Twitter’s central role in covering Iranian political news got me wondering — on Twitter, of course — how many people are actually using the service inside of Iran. I got a couple responses, in the form of anecdotal statistics from web companies. It seems that Iranians are mostly using Facebook.
Here’s the first piece of information: Widget-maker Clearspring offers a sharing widget called AddThis for sites, where users can share… Continue Reading
Clearspring acquires AddThis, moves towards universal sharing widgets
Widget creation platform Clearspring has acquired AddThis, a bookmarking and sharing button, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition moves Clearspring closer to becoming a service that lets users share content from any website.
AddThis will initially remain its own service. Clearspring reports that the two services combined will reach approximately 200 million users and 300,000 publishers.
As far as widget platforms go, Clearspring has branched out to allow users to share content across a number of social… Continue Reading
A step in the right direction: Widget company Clearspring passes ad audit
Widget companies may have widgets that get hundreds of millions of page views and visitors, but measuring their traffic has been tricky. Comscore and other third party services are still refining their methodologies, and have been criticized for undercounting the traffic of some companies.
Widget syndication and tracking service Clearspring has had itself successfully audited by third-party media auditing service, the Audit Bureau of Circulations Interactive (ABCi), both to solve the traffic analysis problem and brand… Continue Reading
Widget infrastructure company Clearspring raises $18M
Questions continue to swirl around the viability of businesses built around widgets. Sure, there are hundreds of millions of people who interact widgets on social networks and other sites, but how can you make money on all that engagement?
Clearspring is working hard to answer that question — and it has just raised $18 million round led by New Enterprise Associates to help it do so. The McLean, Virginia company provides widget infrastructure: A “platform”, as… Continue Reading
Clearspring launches widgets for Madison Avenue
In the latest evolution of this fast-paced but not yet lucrative world of widgets, Clearspring, a leading widget company, has launched an ad network for widgets (sample widget left).
It comes at a time when advertising agencies on Madison Avenue are finally getting comfortable with the idea of buying ads in widgets to get their client companies in front of social network users. A market for widget ads is forming, although its still unclear which forms… Continue Reading
Quantcast becomes latest widget traffic tracker
Updated
More and more publishers and retailers rely on so-called “widgets,” little boxes placed on other web sites, to deliver their news, entertainment and product advertisements.
So measuring Web traffic to those widgets is important for deciding what content to deliver, and what sites to deliver it on. A number of companies now offer widget traffic measurement tools, with Quantcast being the latest.
Here’s a summary of some of the main players in this nascent but increasingly important… Continue Reading
Roundup: USA Today stiffs Google, and Google gossip, Reuters, Geni, Rockyou…
Updated
Here’s the latest action:
USA Today launches new social networking features, but stiffs Google — The newspaper has offered an array of new features, letting registered readers have their own profile pages, where they can recommend articles, solicit comments — and there’s more. Alas, the new content of all these users won’t be tracked by Google or found in Google’s search results, because USA today has used Javascript technology to defy it. That hurts USA Today’s traffic…. Continue Reading
Widget company, Clearspring, says it leads market, and raises $5.5M
Clearspring, a company in Arlington, Virginia that provides a way for content owners to syndicate and track their content through widgets placed on other Web sites, has raised $5.5 million in its second round of financing.
The round was led by Phil Bronner of Novak Biddle Venture Partners and Miles Gilburne of ZG Ventures, who also led Clearspring’s first round in 2006.
Additional investment was provided by Mark Jung, Steve Case and Ted Leonsis. Jung, who… Continue Reading