Scratch Widgets, Clearspring Is The Sharing Company

Posted by Nick O'Neill on December 3rd, 2009 8:00 AM

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-Add This Icon-

This morning Clearspring officially announced that they will soon deprecate the company’s Launchpad widget platform, integrating features directly into AddThis which will become Clearspring’s central platform. The shift makes a ton of sense, as the concept of “widgets” doesn’t resonate as strongly with users as “sharing” does. While Facebook and other social platforms want to be a centralized place for the content a user shares, AddThis serves as the sharing switchboard.

Clearspring also wants to participate in the 1 billion user race, as its reach has grown from 200 million users last year to over 600 million users as of today. That means Clearspring has data on almost have the world’s global internet population which is now approximately over 1.7 billion (source). While it’s easy for some to write off Clearspring’s latest shift, the company now has access to a massive amount of data.

Whether it’s the platforms that users are sharing most through or the articles which are being shared most, AddThis has the potential to provide not only media companies but social platforms and most importantly search engines with valuable user data. Given that the majority of web users are not busy building their own websites and linking to other sites via traditional web pages, search engines need to gain access to the valuable “sharing” data.

That’s why both Microsoft and Google have announced partnerships with Twitter for having unfiltered access to their data. While sampled data is often enough to determine what content is most popular, having the largest sample size is still a competitive benefit. Facebook continues to dominate the world of online sharing, however there is still a large percentage of the world which doesn’t use Facebook or like to share information via other channels like Twitter, or even email (gasp!).

However users share information and whatever information users want to share (including widgets), AddThis is positioning themselves as the single sharing platform to share anything, anywhere. Now all we need to find out is what Clearspring plans on doing with all that data.

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I'd like to go there someday. It must be really fun to know other people's culture. They said it's a beautiful country.
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twitter will never come to an end. Live long twitter
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ITs news for me that MS and Google have announced partnerships with Twitter for having unfiltered access to their data. Without having addthis widgets its going to be tough managing so many social networking sites. The question is which one is it. Sounds like an intelligent question ?
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I will contact you via email so that you can clear some of these things up for me. Again, very well written article. Keep up the good work.
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The thing is what about the access we give these large corps does no one worry about the big brother aspects?
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Well, I might have a try of this new fuction.
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these widgets simple amuse me! they're all so cute. It's good that Clearspring collaborated them all.. this makes those who have accounts to almost all social networking sites easier.
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Whether it’s the platforms that users are sharing most through or the articles which are being shared most, AddThis has the potential to provide not only media companies but social platforms and most importantly search engines with valuable user data. Given that the majority of web users are not busy building their own websites and linking to other sites via traditional web pages, search engines need to gain access to the valuable “sharing” data.
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Years ago when we learnt the spelling of internet we had yahoo. When you need to search something on the internet no one said we have to yahoo. Google came in quietly and slowly made its way into the bookmarks and into the dictionary. Now when you say I need to search something on the internet, you can simply say “I can Google that”. And times a changing, Face book and its suite of applications has captured the market and needless to say, this is also a revolution in internet computing. Then we have several others like Twitter, orkut, linkedin and now we have widgets to make accessibility easy. All you need to do is click one (or may be twice ) and you can actually have the click interface to your favorite networking site. Now there are so many sites that when one catches up on popularity there is a new one that promises to make our online experience easy.
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Given that the majority of web users are not busy building their own websites and linking to other sites via traditional web pages, search engines need to gain access to the valuable “sharing” data.
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it’s easy for some to write off Clearspring’s latest shift, the company now has access to a massive amount of data. It may be used by many because of its usefulness.
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I'll try it.
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wow.. another discovery. And another site that people could get addicted to. :D. Keep those idea coming. Keep up the good work guys!
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Twitter is a fad that will come to an end soon. What is needed is a tool that allows people to share useful information, so Clearspring's initative should work out well.
milener

Clearspring has really impressive growth. Their position as the sharing company makes alot of sense, its a unique angle in a crowded web space.
milener

Great to see Clearspring's growth. Being the 'sharing' company gives them a unique position in the market.
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this is interesting. "AddThis is positioning themselves as the single sharing platform to share anything, anywhere. Now all we need to find out is what Clearspring plans on doing with all that data." AddThis is I believe worth looking forward to. It may be used by many because of its usefulness. Maybe my project on ab belt could benefit from this too.
YourNetBiz

Given that the majority of web users are not busy building their own websites and linking to other sites via traditional web pages, search engines need to gain access to the valuable “sharing” data.
mivpl

just what does Clearspring plan to do with the data? Also, the fact that Google and Microsoft having access to the ever-growing amount of data from Twitter concerns.ab belt
mivpl

a fad that will come to an end soon. What is needed is a tool that allows people to share useful information,
Dover Kent

given that the majority of web users are not busy building their own websites and linking to other sites via traditional web pages, search engines need to gain access to the valuable “sharing” data.
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In my opinion, it is a little bit ambitious for Clearspring to have almost have the world’s global internet population which is now approximately over 1.7 billion.
Jeff Harris

I think you raise an important point - just what does Clearspring plan to do with the data? Also, the fact that Google and Microsoft having access to the ever-growing amount of data from Twitter concerns me a little.
Andrew

Not a fan of twitter feeds in Google, they take up too much space and add absolutely nothing to search results
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social platforms and most importantly search engines with valuable user data. Given that the majority of web users are not busy building their own websites and linking to other sites via traditional web pages, search engines need to gain access to the valuable “sharing” data.
Sam

Does this mean that anyone who currently uses the clearspring widgets will no longer have access to them?
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An Initiative move nick
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Twitter is a fad that will come to an end soon. What is needed is a tool that allows people to share useful information, so Clearspring's initative should work out well.
KenTH

AddThis is pretty useful, though the level of data ClearSpring now have access to does concern me a little. Data on nearly one-half of the world's internet population? Staggering.
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That Sounds interesting, i agree with you. Please keep at your good work, I would come back often.
Ganesh Agro

If clearspring can do it, then it is a great work for bloggers. Its really appreciable and useful for the users.
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Thanks for the nice writeup!
lemieuxster

Second graph, second sentence: "have" does not equal "half"