Kicking off with charter Showcase companies – Amie Street, AOL, Flickr, Freewebs, and Infield Parking

Today, we’re launching Widgetbox
Showcases™, a trusted place where people can find branded widgets. We created Showcases to fulfill an expressed
need from our partners and other content publishers. Showcases are for any
content provider with multiple widgets for multiple purposes: promotions,
advertising, traffic generation, self-expression, etc. In addition, many of
these have third-party widgets built off their APIs. As the widget
economy continues to evolve, content providers are telling us that they need a
trusted resource to manage their varied widget properties. So, we created
Showcases as a natural, flexible solution to these evolving needs. We are thrilled to highlight
our charter Showcase partners: Amie Street, AOL, Flickr, Freewebs and Infield Parking.

Beyond capabilities, Showcases
also provide flexibility. Participants can create the Showcase that best
reflects their widget strategy:

· Showcases can
house from two to hundreds of widgets, and widgets can easily be added and
deleted from a Showcase.

· Showcases can be
co-branded with Widgetbox and co-located in our gallery for public access, or a
Showcase can be exclusively branded and accessible via the partner’s site.

· Through our
powerful Widget Syndication Platform™, we can provide as much of the widget
management needed:  creation tools,
distribution, promotion, syndication and measurement – from A to Z, or a
smattering.

It’s great to launch this
new feature with some great companies too – check out these charter Showcases: Amie Street, AOL, Flickr, Freewebs, and Infield
Parking. We think these folks are doing
innovative things in the widget space and we applaud their strategy to brand
their widgets with Showcases. To hear
what they have to say about us, check out their quotes in our press release.

There are several ways
people will discover Showcases – all tailored to reflect the content provider’s
strategy.

· With sponsored
tags in the Widgetbox gallery – take a look at the headers to these
searches: music (Amie Street Widgets), video, (Awesome AOL Widgets), photos (Flickr Fueled
Widgets).

· On the partner’s
site

· Through advanced
search engine optimization delivered by Widgetbox. A simple Google search for
AOL widgets, for instance, will take you right to the AOL sponsored tags in the Widgetbox
gallery.

Once you’re in a Showcase,
it’s a viral experience. You can preview
all the widgets, see each one’s rating and subscriptions, and click the “Get
Widget” button to get it then and there within the Showcase.

Are you seeing a better way
to brand and manage your widgets? Have
we whetted your appetite? Interested in creating your own Showcase? ">Then let’s
talk.

As a footnote, if you’re
headed to Web 2.0
today, I hope you’ll come hear my presentation
at 2:40pm. Thanks to the folks at
O’Reilly for inviting us to the podium.