Widgetbox

Widgetbox Opens Web Widget Marketplace

New Service Makes it Easy to Assemble, Share and Integrate Web Widgets

San Francisco, CA, September 25, 2006 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), the leading marketplace for web widgets, today announced the public launch of the Widgetbox online syndication service for web widgets. Widgetbox is part of a growing trend, called the programmable web, which is changing the look of blogs, profiles and web pages by making it easy to create and distribute web widgets. A web widget is a piece of web service-based interactive content that can be dynamically embedded into a web page.

“Our goal is to become the trusted directory for web widgets,” said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox. “We clearly see the shape the programmable web is taking and are providing a simple but powerful service that makes it easy for anyone to use web widgets. We will continue to add new functionality to Widgetbox like expanding the widget analytics and e-commerce features.”

As an open web widget marketplace, Widgetbox serves the needs of both web widget developers and web personal publishers, including bloggers, web site and profile developers, participants in web auctions and others. Widget developers using Widgetbox include the very small, independent developers and the very large such as Yahoo! and eBay. Personal publishers using Widgetbox range from kids personalizing their MySpace profiles to widely read bloggers to business users with many web pages within a corporate website.

Central to the power and simplicity of Widgetbox is the Widget Syndication Platform™. This unique “under the hood” technology, only available at Widgetbox, enables:

• Live Widgets: Widgets are always live within blogs and web pages; they can be re-configured instantly and without touching HTML code.
• Smart Blogs: Widgets can be “tag aware”, meaning a web publisher can make widgets react to the content of their web site. For example, an image widget might display images related to the content of the most recent blog post.
• Widget Panels: Drag and drop placement makes it easy to install and manage widgets within Widgetbox.

Continuous Improvement through Beta Testing

Widgetbox is completing an extensive private and public beta testing process which began in late June, 2006. Specific Widgetbox enhancements available as of today include:

• Widget Panels
  • Drag and drop placement makes it easy to install and manage widgets within Widgetbox.
• Support for all popular sites
  • Ability to show widgets on all popular sites, including MySpace.
• Unlisted Widgets
  • Ability to have widgets that aren’t listed in the general gallery. This makes it much easier to test widgets or share a widget with a private audience.
• Live Preview™
  • Ability to show bloggers exactly what their widget will look like on their website.
• Continuous usability improvements
  • Hundreds upon hundreds of usability enhancements in finding widgets, subscribing to widgets, and developing widgets.

Widgetbox Certified Partner Program

Widgetbox also announced today the Widgetbox Certified Developer Program which provides specialized support for developers, large and small. Membership benefits include developer assistance and additional widget exposure on the Widgetbox site.

A list of Charter Partners can be found here http://docs.widgetbox.com/about/partners/partner-list/.

About Web Widgets

A web widget is a piece of web service-based interactive content that can be dynamically embedded into a web page. For example, a web widget can be a game, a score box displaying a set of statistics, a weather box, an advertising box or any other functionality to be embedded on a web page such as a blog, personal homepage, social networking profile, or auction page. Web widgets, sometimes called gadgets or modules, are increasingly used by web publishers to enhance their web pages, and web service developers are now frequently making their technologies available as web widgets. Many different technologies can be used to develop widgets: HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, Flash, Java Applets, and any web application platform: J2EE, LAMP, Perl, Ruby, etc.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox is the leader in creating a Web widget marketplace that provides widgets for use with blogs, social networks, auctions and web pages. Widgetbox’s mission is to give everyone the power to assemble, share and integrate the best of the Web. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. Widgetbox is funded by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.