New Clearspring tool converts Web sites to widgets

Computerworld - Clearspring Technologies Inc. Monday announced the release of Launchpad, a set of tools that will let developers convert Web sites to widgets that can be posted on social networks, blogs or other Web sites.

Thus, a company could build a widget -- a small, single purpose piece application -- with images or games that could be distributed to other sites, said Hooman Radfar, Clearspring founder and chief executive officer

"This is part of a large initiative to start opening up our service, opening up our platform," Radfar said. "It's about giving lot of services to larger development groups  ... people focused on distribution. You can widgetize your Web site with one piece of code and transform various components into widgets and make them shareable."

Developers can use code provided by Clearspring to quickly embed a sharing menu or button on their Web site. End users can then use the button or menu to easily post, bookmark or embed widgets to other sites.

Developers using Launchpad will also have access to Clearspring's analytics and reporting tools, allowing widget creators to track widget views, placement, unique viewers, time spent and interaction with the widgets, Clearsping said. Clearspring offers a variety of visualization options for the analytics, including importing the data directly into Excel.

Clearspring will also offer some templates and code libraries to help with the development of widgets.

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