Press Releases

News from Widgetbox

April 23, 2008

Widgetbox Announces New Widget Gallery for the iPhone

Enhances distribution for widget creators on this year’s most sought after mobile device

San Francisco, Calif., April 23, 2008 —Widgetbox™, home to the largest community of widget makers and users, today announced its iPhone widget gallery, which extends the world’s largest gallery of widgets to the screens of millions of iPhone users around the world.

“Widgets represent a largely untapped opportunity for businesses who need to reach their constituencies in new ways,” said Will Price, chief executive officer at Widgetbox. “By hosting a new widget gallery customized for the iPhone, Widgetbox and the widget-making community are able to increase the reach and customization for messages targeted at specific audiences.”

As the Internet becomes an increasingly personalized tool for consumers, advertisers need multiple ways to reach audiences online, whether on the desktop or on the mobile. Widgets have emerged as a promising advertising mechanism to address this need that also offer revenue opportunities to widget makers. By enabling the distribution of widgets specifically for the iPhone, Widgetbox will further help advertisers to reach target customers and allow widget makers to be recognized and paid for their creative work.

A range of select widgets are immediately available in the Widgetbox iPhone Gallery including widgets for today’s top ten most interesting flickr images, the Fake Steve Jobs blog, the Yahoo! News RSS image feeds and the popular Magic 8-Ball widget for on-the-fly advice. Widgetbox expects its community of more than 32,000 developers and widget makers to continue contributing new widgets to this custom gallery in the coming weeks and months. A short tutorial on how to develop widgets for the iPhone is available at http://docs.widgetbox.com/developers/guide/iphone-and-ipod-touch-widgets/.

All widgets in the Widgetbox iPhone Gallery function on iPhones, the iPod Touch and in any desktop web browser environment. Please visit the new gallery by going to http://iphone.widgetbox.com from your iPhone.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox helps people express, connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. Widgetbox has the largest selection of web widgets – more than 50,000, with 41 million monthly viewers on over 500,000 domains. Widgetbox serves both the developers and consumers of widgets and has the most comprehensive set of tools for the management and distribution of your web widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™ is a trademark of Widgetbox, Inc. All other company names, product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

March 13, 2008

Widgetbox Names Will Price Chief Executive Officer

San Francisco, Calif., March 13, 2008 —Widgetbox™, announced today that Will Price has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer. As CEO, Price will be responsible for leading all aspects of strategy, operations, marketing, technology and product development for the company. Michael Dearing, an independent board member and Stanford University consulting associate professor, had served as interim CEO during the search. Dearing will remain on the company’s board of directors.

Prior to joining Widgetbox, Price was a managing director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He played a key role in the firm’s investments in Move Networks, Replay Solutions, Mulesource, Star Analytics, YieldBuild, Widgetbox, Kwiry, Infopia and SlideRocket. Prior to joining Hummer Winblad in 2005, Price was a senior vice president with Pequot Ventures, where he focused on investments in information technology. Previously, he served as CEO and COO of several software start-ups. His blog covering software and technology can be found at http://willprice.blogspot.com.

Michael Dearing commented on Price’s move to the CEO post saying, “Will is an outstanding leader and the board and I are thrilled he has taken the role. As my friend and colleague on the Widgetbox board, I got to know his strategic sense, his passion for growing new businesses, and his outstanding leadership skills. I am confident he will bring those same skills to Widgetbox as CEO, building on the foundation the team has laid.”

Fellow Board Member and Managing Director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Mitchell Kertzman added, “As an executive and an investor, Will has done terrific work helping young companies grow and succeed. I will miss his contributions at Hummer Winblad, but I’m glad Will is staying in the HWVP family. I know he will do great things as Widgetbox’s CEO.”

“The Widgetbox community of developers, publishers, and consumers operates on the frontier of the distributed web,” said Price. “Widgets are the fundamental unit by which users are assembling and defining their web experience. Widgetbox’s growth reflects the power of the componentized web and the company is well positioned with a growing monthly audience of 30 million uniques, nearly 400 million monthly widget views, and Widgetbox-enabled widgets installed across 230,000 domains. The opportunity to work with the board and the leadership team at Widgetbox to build upon the existing foundation is extremely exciting.”

Price received a master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox helps people express, connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. Widgetbox has the largest selection of web widgets – more than 40,000, with 30 million monthly viewers on over 230,000 domains. Widgetbox serves both the developers and consumers of widgets and has the most comprehensive set of tools for the management and distribution of your web widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™ is a trademark of Widgetbox, Inc. All other company names, product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

January 31, 2008

Widgetbox Closes 8 Million in Series B Funding

San Francisco, Calif., January 31, 2008 —Widgetbox™, announced today it has closed its series B funding, raising $8 million from investors Sequoia Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, NCD Investors, and private investor, Michael Dearing. The new funding will be used to build products and services for its large and growing community of developers and consumers including the expansion of DevShare™, the company’s revenue sharing program with developers.

Widgetbox operates the largest distributed community of widget developers and consumers, which includes:

  • 26,000 widget developers
  • 33,000 widgets in the gallery at www.widgetbox.com
  • 12 million daily widget-views
  • Distribution across 210,000 domains
  • 15 percent of Facebook applications and 60 percent of Bebo applications

Commenting on the investment, Sequoia Capital’s Jim Goetz said, “Widgetbox and its community are building this business one widget at a time, one domain at a time. Widgetbox’s success shows a distributed community of developers and users is a powerful part of the widget ecosystem.”

In 2007, the company closed its series A funding. The amount of the funding was not disclosed. Investors included Sequoia Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, and Michael Dearing.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox helps people express, connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. Widgetbox has the largest selection of web widgets - over 33,000, with 28 million monthly viewers on over 210,000 domains. Widgetbox serves both the developers and consumers of widgets and has the most comprehensive set of tools for the management and distribution of your web widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™ and DevShare™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other company names, product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

January 14, 2008

Widgetbox Launches App Accelerator for Bebo – Allows Developers to Create Apps on Bebo’s New Open Application Platform in Minutes

San Francisco, Calif., January 14, 2008 —Widgetbox™, home of the world’s largest distributed marketplace for web widgets, today announced the launch of the App Accelerator for Bebo, the global Social Media Network. Developers can now quickly and easily create applications for Bebo’s Open Application Platform using Widgetbox’s unique application creator tool. By turning their widgets into apps, developers make their content available to Bebo’s more than 40 million users to instantly interact with and express their passions and interests to their online friends.

“We are very excited to be working with Bebo. By doing so, we offer our developers a new avenue to distribute their widgets virally across the web,” said Giles Goodwin, CTO and co-founder. “Beboers will now be able to access thousands of widgets in the form of a Bebo app to find the perfect one that helps them convey their personalities and enables them to share content on Bebo. We are excited for Bebo users to have access to our developers’ unique and engaging content and we expect to see application adoption soar, much like we’ve seen with other social networking applications.”

The App Accelerator for Bebo provides developers with tools to create applications with minimal time and effort, thereby affording them more time to focus on creative content. In turn, Bebo users can then more easily access Widgetbox’s gallery of more than 30,000 widgets and apps and add their favorite apps to their Bebo profile page.

“We are committed to making it as seamless as possible for developers to reach our community with innovative ideas and engaging content – the Widgetbox App Accelerator helps us to further this goal,” said Michael Birch, CEO and co-founder of Bebo.

To learn more about the App Accelerator for Bebo, please visit www.widgetbox.com/bebo.

About Bebo

Bebo is the world’s leading global Social Media Network. Building on the notion of traditional social networking websites, Bebo combines community, self-expression and entertainment to enable its users to consume, create, discover and share professional and user-generated content through the Bebo website. Bebo has more than 40 million worldwide. Bebo also ranks as the UK’s most engaging website with the most page views per usage day amongst the top 100 most popular sites *.

Bebo was founded in 2005 by Michael and Xochi Birch. For more information on Bebo please visit www.bebo.com.

*Source: comScore World Metrix

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox helps people express, connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. Widgetbox has the largest selection of web widgets and the most comprehensive set of tools for the management and distribution of your web widgets. Widgetbox serves both the developers and consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™ and App Accelerator™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other company names, product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

September 26, 2007

Widgetbox Launches App Accelerator for Facebook – Community Creates 200+ Apps in First Week

Announces Long Tail Advertising Partnership with RockYou

Developers go ga-ga over “DevShare” – a new money-making toolkit for widgets

San Francisco — September 26, 2007 — Widgetbox™, operator of the world’s largest distributed marketplace for widgets, announced today that the Widgetbox community has created more than 200 Facebook applications in the first week since it quietly launched the App Accelerator™. The latest product from the community-based widget marketplace was previewed on the site last week (www.widgetbox.com). The App Accelerator is available to all members of the Widgetbox community. Since last week’s preview, over 100 community members turned their widgets into Facebook applications.

Widgetbox also announced a new revenue toolkit for widget developers known as DevShare™. The first component of DevShare is a one-of-a-kind advertising partnership between RockYou, a leading developer and publisher of widgets and applications across social networks, and Widgetbox. Under terms of the relationship, RockYou will sell advertising on applications created through Widgetbox’s App Accelerator. Widgetbox will in turn share ad revenue 50-50 with the developer. According to Widgetbox, 80% of community members participating in the preview opted into DevShare.

“Widgetbox is a strategic partner for RockYou and we are pleased to collaborate with them on this exciting program,” said Lance Tokuda, CEO and co-founder of RockYou. “Our combined menu of applications across various Internet channels make for a powerful distribution network.”

Commenting on the company’s progress, Board member and interim CEO, Michael Dearing, said, “Widgetbox is a broad and diverse community of widget makers and widget users across 130,000 domains. Diversity makes for a healthy ecosystem. Now we’re bringing that long tail of widgets into the social networks. Facebook is just the natural place to start and RockYou is an ideal partner.” Dearing was formerly a senior executive at eBay (NASDAQ – EBAY) and is also a Consulting Associate Professor at Stanford University.

Earlier this year, the company announced that it had received Series A funding from Sequoia Capital and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Joining the Board at that time were Dearing, an independent investor, Jim Goetz of Sequoia Capital, and Mitchell Kertzman of Hummer Winblad. The company said it will use the capital to support accelerated development of its web-based product and services. The amount of funding was not disclosed.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox helps people express, connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. Widgetbox has the largest selection of web widgets and the most comprehensive set of tools for the management and distribution of your web widgets. Widgetbox serves both the developers and consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

About RockYou

RockYou is a leading provider of applications and widgets on the web. RockYou widgets include photo slideshows, glitter text, customized Facebook applications and voicemail accessories that are simple to use and enable people to frequently refresh their online style. Founded in 2006, RockYou has over 29 million users, serving over 150 million widget views per day in more than 200 countries.  RockYou applications are customized for easy integration across all social networks including Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Tagged and hi5. RockYou’s cost-effective, results-focused advertising platform is the largest Ad Network on Facebook and the most dynamic method for rapidly acquiring Facebook application users.  New applications can reach over 100k users in 24 hours, spanning a suite of applications across multiple publishing partners.  Headquartered in San Mateo, California, RockYou is funded by Sequoia Capital, Partech International and Lightspeed Venture Partners. To learn more about RockYou please visit http://rockyou.com/corp/about.php

About Sequoia Capital

Sequoia Capital provides startup venture capital for very smart people who want to turn ideas into companies. As the "Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs", Sequoia Capital's Partners have worked with innovators such as Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Bob Swanson of Linear Technology, Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack of Cisco Systems, Dan Warmenhoven of Network Appliance, Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo!, Jen-Hsun Huang of nVIDIA, Michael Marks of Flextronics, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen of YouTube, Steve Goldman and Sujal Patel of Isilon Systems and Dominic Orr and Keerti Melkote of Aruba Wireless Networks. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit www.sequoiacap.com.

About Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was created in 1989 as the first venture capital firm focused exclusively on software. As the software industry grew from PC software to enterprise computing to Internet applications, Hummer Winblad has been at the forefront - funding the entrepreneurs and ideas that helped define these markets. The firm's goal is to provide the capital, experience, and vision that will enable its companies to become leaders in this new software economy. For more information on Hummer Winblad, visit www.humwin.com.

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Widgetbox™, App Accelerator™, and DevShare™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other company names, product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

AUGUST 14, 2007

Widgetbox Creates Showcase for New My iTunes Web Widgets

Use the New Widgetbox MixIt™ Tool for Sharing Music Across the Internet

San Francisco — August 14, 2007 — Widgetbox™, the world’s largest marketplace for web widgets, today announced the Widgetbox Showcase™ for iTunes featuring the new My iTunes web widget, giving users new and fun ways to share their music and movie tastes across the web. The My iTunes widget can be used to share top reviews, favorite artists, new music, movies, and TV shows from the iTunes Store. These new widgets can be easily found by anyone who visits iTunes, the Widgetbox Showcase for iTunes, or any site with the widgets posted, and can then be shared across the Internet. The My iTunes widget reflect the way users use iTunes, so each one is unique—just like iTunes users’ taste in music, movies, and more. The My iTunes widget can be embedded on any Flash-enabled website, including most social networking profiles and blogs. My iTunes feeds can also be used with any standard feed reader, keeping web pages up-to-date with favorite music, music videos, TV shows, and movies from the iTunes Store.

Also featured in the Widgetbox Showcase for iTunes is the innovative Widgetbox MixIt™, a web tool that turns any iMix playlist feed into a web widget that then can be easily posted on social network profile pages, blogs, and other personal web pages. With the MixIt tool, iTunes users can build their personalized playlist on iTunes, and then easily share their customized iMix music selections with their family members, friends and millions of other music lovers across the web with a single click – no cutting and pasting of code is required.

“People pride themselves on their iMix playlists. Now users can easily share their iMix lists with their family and friends” said Giles Goodwin, co-founder of Widgetbox. “We expect the reach of iTunes to expand further than before imagined as the viral nature of web widgets will enhance growth.”

The Widgetbox Showcase for iTunes is available immediately to anyone visiting www.widgetbox.com/showcase/itunes. Users who already have iMix lists published in the iTunes Store can immediately use Widgetbox’s MixIt tool to create their customized iMix widget. Once this easy process is completed, the iMix MixIt widget can be easily embedded in social-networking profile pages, blogs, and other web pages. Friends and family can easily get a MixIt for their own web pages and continue passing it on to additional friends.

“Widgets clearly embody the Forbes.com philosophy that our users should be able to choose where, when and how they consume our content,” said Jim Spanfeller, President and CEO, Forbes.com. “Visa Small Business is the perfect launch sponsor, as small business owners are especially time constrained and can benefit from being able to designate their own access points to critical news and information every day.”

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox’s mission is to help people express, connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed across the web. Widgetbox has the largest selection of web widgets and the most comprehensive set of tools for the management of your web widgets. Widgetbox serves both the producers and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

 

 

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ and Widgetbox Network™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

JULY 11, 2007

Widgetbox Announces In-Widget Advertising Solution

Ads Are Seamlessly Inserted into Sponsored Content Widgets and Broadcast to the Widgetbox Network; Forbes.com First to Use New Solution

Forbes.com New Content Widgets Sponsored by Visa Small Business

San Francisco — July 11, 2007 — Widgetbox™, the world’s largest marketplace for web widgets, today announced a unique solution designed to automatically insert third-party paid advertising into sponsored-content widgets. The sponsored-content widgets, typically from publishers, then use the Widgetbox Network™ to broadcast these widgets, with advertising, to thousands of registered domains. Because the widgets can easily spread virally across the web, in-widget advertising can be widely propagated beyond the boundaries of both the original publisher’s site and the network domains.

“What we are seeing here is the emergence of a new, powerful Internet advertising media with the same defined characteristics as traditional media: editorial and advertising combined together in a format that can be easily broadcast to a wide network of targeted recipients,” said Ed Anuff, co-founder and CEO of Widgetbox. “This is the first step in the emergence of a potentially very large in-widget advertising market.”

New Forbes.com Widgets Feature In-Widget Advertising from Visa Small Business

In a related announcement made yesterday, Forbes.com unveiled a set of new content widgets sponsored by Visa Small Business. These widgets, featuring topical editorial content from Forbes.com, can be placed on placed on any blog, website or social network profile with one-click.

“Widgets clearly embody the Forbes.com philosophy that our users should be able to choose where, when and how they consume our content,” said Jim Spanfeller, President and CEO, Forbes.com. “Visa Small Business is the perfect launch sponsor, as small business owners are especially time constrained and can benefit from being able to designate their own access points to critical news and information every day.”

Widgetbox In-Widget Advertising Solution

The new Widgetbox In-Widget Advertising solution is designed for easy delivery of advertising across the web. In addition the solution features:

  • Full integration with remote ad servers allowing seamless in-widget ad delivery while the publisher controls the widget content.
  • A unique to Widgetbox ad-friendly detection system ensuring that in-widget ads never show up where they are not allowed.
  • Widgetbox managed distribution, promotion and seamless ad integration with the Widgetbox Network.
  • And, powerful widget tracking, analytics, reports and management from the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™.
About Widgetbox

Widgetbox is the leading managed syndication network for web widgets. Widgetbox’s mission is to create a thriving web widget economy by becoming the trusted resource for creating, distributing, promoting, tracking and monetizing widgets. The Widgetbox gallery is the world’s largest marketplace for widgets and the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ is Widgetbox’s exclusive backend infrastructure that provides the most comprehensive set of tools for the management of your web widget strategy. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ and Widgetbox Network™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

JULY 10, 2007

Forbes.com Launches Eight Separate Widgets

Visa Small Business Is Exclusive Sponsor

New York, NY — July 10, 2007 — Today, Forbes.com (www.forbes.com) announced the launch of eight widgets that enable users to view, engage with and share Forbes.com content on blogs, social media sites, and personal Web sites. Forbes.com worked with Widgetbox on the production, creation and hosting of the Forbes.com widgets, available at http://www.forbes.com/widgets or www.widgetbox.com/showcase/forbes. Visa Small Business is the exclusive sponsor for all of the widgets.

The Forbes.com Widget Channels are:

  1. Breaking News
  2. Lifestyle
  3. Technology
  4. Business
  5. Entrepreneurs
  6. Stock to Watch
  7. Top Lists
  8. Latest Video

The first five widgets offer five hyperlinked story headlines and accompanying story overviews pulled from the corresponding Forbes.com RSS feeds, as well as hyperlinks to the latest Forbes.com videos on the subject.

For the “Stock to Watch” widget, each day a Forbes.com Personal Finance editor suggests and describes their choice for the best stock of the day, and includes a link to a newsletter or story that supports the choice. This widget also links to the three latest “Stock of the Week” videos. The “Top Lists” widget includes top “fives” from selected Forbes lists, and the “Latest Video” widget includes the five latest Forbes.com Markets videos.

“Widgets clearly embody the Forbes.com philosophy that our users should be able to choose where, when and how they consume our content,” said Jim Spanfeller, President and CEO, Forbes.com. “Visa Small Business is the perfect launch sponsor, as small business owners are especially time constrained and can benefit from being able to designate their own access points to critical news and information every day.”

“The Widgetbox Showcase™ for Forbes is an ideal way for Forbes.com to extend its brand across the web. Users can easily select a widget from the Showcase and place it on their profile or website, their friends can do the same, leading to viral adoption of the Forbes.com content,” said Ed Anuff, co-founder and CEO of Widgetbox. “And, the delivery of ad content demonstrates the promotional power of Forbes.com leading edge widget strategy.”

"Visa is always looking for new and innovative ways to reach our cardholders and our partnership with Forbes.com is a great way to deliver relevant content in a new way," said Jon Raj, vice president of online and emerging media, Visa USA. "These widgets allow small business owners to access the information they are looking to help run their business, direct to their desktops when they want it, from one of the most respected names in journalism."

The Forbes.com widgets require no downloading and are easily integrated into personal Web media including Web sites, social media sites, personal blogs, desktops and more. The company plans to launch additional widgets.

Contact: Emily Kutner
Forbes.com
212-366-8962 or

About Forbes.com

Forbes.com LLC (www.forbes.com), home page for the world’s business leaders and the No. 1 business news source in the world, is among the most trusted resources for senior business executives, providing them the real-time reporting, uncompromising commentary, concise analysis, relevant tools and community they need to succeed at work, profit from investing and have fun with the rewards of winning. Throughout the business day Forbes.com publishes more than 2,500 articles, delivering the best of Forbes journalism and that of its selected partners with all the immediacy, depth and interactivity that the Web allows. More people get their business news on Forbes.com than any other source in the world covering business, technology, entrepreneurs, markets, personal finance and lifestyle, with streaming video broadcasts several times a day.

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ and Widgetbox Network™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contacts:

For Sugar Publishing:
Rebecca Gruber
646-283-5081

JUNE 21, 2007

Pssst: Get Your Gossip On Bebo

Widgetbox and Sugar Publishing Provide New Gossip Widgets for Bebo

San Francisco — June 21, 2007 — Widgetbox™, the world’s largest marketplace for web widgets, along with partners Sugar Publishing and Bebo, today announced the Widgetbox Showcase™ for Bebo — a fun and interactive showcase of gossip widgets for the 33 million worldwide Bebo users. The gossip showcase, created and managed by Widgetbox on behalf of Bebo, includes the most popular gossip widgets from across the web including widgets built with content from Sugar Network sites such as PopSugar and FabSugar, and others such as AOL’s TMZ and Perez Hilton. Unique to the showcase is a completely new MySugar widget, a fully customizable and interactive widget, which allows Bebo users to combine their favorite Sugar sites to create their own individualized Sugar widget. The MySugar widget will be exclusive to Bebo for four weeks and then made more widely available.

Bebo users can easily discover all of the gossip widgets in this single showcase by clicking the widgets icon on their Bebo profiles, or by going directly to the Widgetbox Showcase for Bebo at www.widgetbox.com/showcase/bebo. This Widgetbox Showcase for Bebo provides an easy and accessible place for Bebo users to find all their favorite gossip widgets in one spot. Once users link to the gossip showcase, they can preview and customize the widgets as well as see Widgetbox ratings, reviews, and subscriptions. Users can also install their favorite widgets on their Bebo profile page right from the showcase in one click. Every gossip widget has a “Get Widget” button for easy sharing and viral adoption with friends.

By adopting the Widgetbox Showcase feature, Bebo is leveraging the powerful Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ to provide the infrastructure needed to efficiently and easily distribute and manage gossip widgets for the millions of Bebo users. Bebo can easily customize the gossip showcase over time, adding and deleting widgets as users respond and new widgets become available. The Widgetbox Showcase feature allows easy co-branding and in this case the Bebo, PopSugar and Widgetbox brands are prominently presented.

“Our Widgetbox Showcase feature is an ideal way for large social networks and content sites like Bebo to provide a differentiated widget experience. Because Widgetbox provides all the widget-specific expertise and under-the-hood management, Bebo can focus on doing what it does best, giving their users what they want and managing its large and growing network,” said Ed Anuff, co-founder and CEO of Widgetbox. “We’re delighted to partner with Bebo to create this gossip showcase. We’re happy to include them among our other showcase partners including Amie Street, AOL, Flickr, Freewebs and Infield Parking.”

“In creating this showcase we also teamed up with Sugar Publishing to create the MySugar widget. It’s a great example of giving users control over the specific content within their individual widget. We like to see our easy and powerful widget creation tools in the hands of users so they have the creative license to express themselves, ” continued Anuff.

“Bebo users are going to love the new MySugar widget,” said Brian Sugar, CEO of Sugar Publishing, Inc. “This widget gives each user the power to express themselves through their individual selections from our ten Sugar sites. It’s fun, easy, and interactive and we look forward to seeing the creativity expressed.”

“Our users want to know exactly what’s happening, when it happens. Incorporating this MySugar widget into their profiles lets them share what they think is cool with the rest of their network,” said Michael Birch, founder and CEO, Bebo. “Our community can now read and share all the gossip and entertainment they want – on their own terms – directly within Bebo.”

About Bebo

Founded in 2005, Bebo (www.bebo.com) is a thriving social network of highly engaged individuals who want to express themselves, discover their passions and connect with like-minded users. More than 33 million members worldwide, have joined the Bebo community, making it the largest social network in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand and one of the top 3 social networks in the US, Canada and Australia. Over 95% of Bebo users are under the age of 35 and the site is one of the fastest growing on the Internet, with 5 users signing up each second. Bebo is also one of the world’s most engaging websites, ranked #3 in the UK after Google and MSN*. Bebo was named as the number one search term in the Year-End Google Zeitgeist 2006.

*Source: comScore World Metrix

About Sugar Publishing

Sugar Publishing, Inc., the privately-owned media company, is focused on creating the richest, most relevant online community for trendsetting, passionate and smart women. Building upon the insanely addictive flagship website, PopSugar, Sugar Publishing’s network now includes BellaSugar, BuzzSugar, YumSugar, FitSugar, GeekSugar, GiggleSugar, DearSugar, TeamSugar and FabSugar, winner of the 2007 People’s Choice Webby for Fashion. The Sugar Network boasts 4 million unique visitors a month. Founded in April 2006 and headquartered in San Francisco, Sugar Publishing is committed to creating the best, most comprehensive, and just plain fun online community for women.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox is the leading managed syndication network for web widgets. Widgetbox’s mission is to create a thriving web widget economy by becoming the trusted resource for creating, distributing, promoting, tracking and monetizing widgets. The Widgetbox gallery is the world’s largest marketplace for widgets and the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ is Widgetbox’s exclusive backend infrastructure that provides the most comprehensive set of tools for the management of your web widget strategy. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com/">www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ and Widgetbox Showcase™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

MAY 30, 2007

Freewebs, imbee.com, LiveJournal, TypePad, Vox, and Xanga Open Platforms with Widgetbox

New Widgetbox Remote Gallery Feature Eases Move to Openness for Any Social Network

San Francisco — May 30, 2007 — Widgetbox™, the world’s largest marketplace for web widgets, along with partners, Freewebs, imbee.com, Xanga, and Six Apart blogging properties TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox, today announced the wide-spread adoption of its new Widgetbox Remote Gallery™ feature which significantly eases the transition to an open platform for these social networks. With the Widgetbox Remote Gallery feature any social network can easily embed a select number of widgets from third party developers and provide access to the over 10,000 widgets from the Widgetbox main gallery, giving their users the ability to easily find and use widgets to customize their profiles, blogs and web pages. With a Widgetbox Remote Gallery users have access to the most popular widgets, selected from the over 10,000 widgets created by third-party developers at Widgetbox, without ever leaving their community site.

“This is the first concrete step in making it practical and fast to implement an open platform,” said Ed Anuff, co-founder and CEO of Widgetbox. “We applaud our partners for taking this significant step toward giving their users more choice and freedom. Today’s web experience is increasingly about self-expression and the selection and placement of widgets is the ultimate demonstration of individuality. This rapid adoption of the Widgetbox Remote Gallery feature shows that these early partners recognize the importance of being open, in a fast and efficient way.”

Each Remote Gallery can vary in size and widget selection as desired; Remote Galleries are fully customizable to suit the needs of the community they serve. Remote Galleries are powered by the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ which provides widget management and infrastructure support for widgets throughout the extended Widgetbox network.

Widgetbox Remote Gallery Partners

Today’s Widgetbox Remote Gallery partners include: Freewebs, imbee.com, Xanga and Six Apart services TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox.

“This partnership gives Freewebs users incredible choice and freedom to easily customize and personalize their websites,” said Shervin Pishevar, president of Freewebs. “These widgets, combined with the widgets currently available in the Freewebs Widget Bank, allow users to have access to the most popular widgets available on the web today, without ever having to leave their site."

“The new remote gallery option from Widgetbox fits the imbee.com model perfectly by allowing us to offer easy access to the most popular widgets while at the same time giving us the capability to make sure those widgets are parent approved and age appropriate for our subscribers,” said Tim Donovan, Vice President of Marketing, imbee.com the first online social community for tweens.

“Our users have embraced widgets, using them to personalize their TypePad blogs and their profiles on Vox and LiveJournal. With Widgetbox Remote Galleries we’ll be able to extend our own TypePad Widget Gallery with additional Widgets from Widgetbox, giving our users more great choices for how they can personalize their blogs, journals, and profiles,” said Michael Sippey, Vice President of Product for the Professional Division at Six Apart.

“We've been looking for a way to offer our users tons of fun stuff for their Xanga sites. Widgetbox makes it easy with their new ‘Remote Galleries’ product,” said Marc Ginsburg, president of Xanga.

Widgetbox Remote Galleries Provide Easy-Access to Ever-Changing Selection of Widgets

Widgetbox Remote Galleries give partners the ability to provide an easy and immersive widget experience for their users.

  • Partners can select from over 10,000 third party widgets at Widgetbox to populate their Widgetbox Remote Gallery. As new widgets are constantly added to Widgetbox, they are immediately available to Remote Galleries.
  • Partners can brand their own Widgetbox Remote Gallery as per this example of the Widgetbox Gallery for Facebook: http://blog.widgetbox.com/2007/05/our_first_remot.html
  • Partners have control over the widget selection in the Widgetbox Remote Gallery. Galleries can be as large or small as desired and widget selection can be rotated as needed.
  • Partners have access to private Widgetbox Syndication Metrics to track the use of Widgetbox widgets on their sites.
  • Partners have the ability to register any widget they want – regardless of whether that widget is in the Widgetbox gallery.
  • Widgetbox Remote Galleries provide an easy and smooth user experience for profile creators. As easy as it is to edit a profile, widgets can be moved to and from the intended profile. Once widgets are in the profile they can be shared with friends throughout the community.
  • Widgets retain complete tag-aware capability when moved from the Widgetbox Remote Gallery to the profile; widget content continues to be sensitive to page context.
  • If desired by the partner, Widgetbox Remote Gallery users can click-out to Widgetbox at any time for access to the complete selection of over 10,000 widgets from thousands of third party developers.
About Widgetbox

Widgetbox is the leading managed syndication network for web widgets. Widgetbox’s mission is to create a thriving web widget economy by becoming the trusted resource for creating, distributing, promoting, tracking and monetizing widgets. The Widgetbox gallery is the world’s largest marketplace for widgets and the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ is Widgetbox’s exclusive backend infrastructure that provides the most comprehensive set of tools for the management of your web widget strategy. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ and Widgetbox Remote Gallery are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

MAY 24, 2007

Widgetbox Launches New Remote Gallery

Customized Using Facebook® Platform

San Francisco — Facebook f8 Event, May 24, 2007 — Widgetbox™, the world’s largest marketplace for web widgets, today announced at Facebook’s f8 event, the Widgetbox Gallery for Facebook built on Facebook Platform, a platform that enables companies and developers to build applications for the Facebook website. The Widgetbox Gallery for Facebook now gives Facebook users worldwide instant access to over 10,000 of the most popular Widgetbox widgets created by the thousands of developers in the Widgetbox network. From the Widgetbox Gallery for Facebook, Facebook users can easily select and embed these widgets into their Facebook profiles, allowing for a higher degree of customization and personalization than previously available.

The Widgetbox Gallery for Facebook also links directly to the RockYou application inside of Facebook giving Facebook users quick and easy access to two new applications.

The Widgetbox Gallery for Facebook can vary in size and widget selection as desired and is fully customized and constantly monitored by Widgetbox through the Facebook Platform to suit the needs of the Facebook community. The Widgetbox Gallery for Facebook is powered by the Widgetbox Syndication Platform which provides widget management and infrastructure support for all widgets throughout the extended Widgetbox network.

“We are thrilled to see Facebook taking this aggressive step in opening up their platform to third-party applications,” said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox. “It’s a good move for users and therefore good for the entire industry.”

"Facebook Platform creates an ecosystem for developers to build applications that deeply integrate into Facebook and use its social graph,” said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. “By enabling developers to make applications within Facebook, we’re working together to create a better utility for millions of people.”

Facebook is a social utility that offers an efficient way for people to stay connected with their friends and the people around them. Facebook users communicate and share information through the social graph, the network of connections and relationships between people. With more than 24 million active users, Facebook is the sixth-most trafficked website in the United States.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox is the leading managed syndication network for web widgets. Widgetbox’s mission is to create a thriving web widget economy by becoming the trusted resource for creating, distributing, promoting, tracking and monetizing widgets. The Widgetbox gallery is the world’s largest marketplace for widgets and the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ is Widgetbox’s exclusive backend infrastructure that provides the most comprehensive set of tools for the management of your web widget strategy. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™, Widgetbox Remote Gallery™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

APRIL 17, 2007

Widgetbox Adds Showcases for Widget Branding

Amie Street, AOL, Freewebs, Infield Parking

Some of First to Use New Branding Capability; In-the-Wild Widget Distribution Also Added

San Francisco, CA, April 17, 2007 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), the world’s largest marketplace for web widgets, has created Widgetbox Showcases™, a trusted place where users can go and find branded widgets. Widgetbox Showcases provide a way for developers to brand and locate their widgets to make them more readily accessible to users, while taking full advantage of the Widgetbox widget management network. Widgetbox Showcases also provide a natural place for cross-marketing of like branded widgets. A Showcase can be co-branded with Widgetbox and visible through the Widgetbox gallery, or exclusively branded with the Showcase owner’s brand and available only via the participant’s website.

“As the widget economy continues to evolve we are finding that content providers have multiple widgets for multiple purposes: promotions, advertising, traffic generation, self-expression, etc. In addition, many content providers have third party widgets built off their APIs. These partners are telling us they need a trusted resource to manage their varied widget properties,” said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox. “We created Showcases as a natural, flexible solution to these evolving needs.”

Charter Showcase Participants

Charter Showcase participants include: Amie Street, AOL, Flickr, Freewebs, and Infield Parking.

“We are really excited to be a part of the new Widgetbox partner showcase,” said Lucas Hrabovsky, chief technology officer of Amie Street. “We see widgets as a major facilitator for some of our core goals: enabling anyone to sell their content anywhere they want and enabling users to discover, purchase and recommend music anywhere they want.  We currently have three widgets in our showcase, and as our users continue to push us for more widgets to meet their needs, we see the Widgetbox platform becoming more and more important; both in terms of making it as easy as possible for users to embed our widgets and for us to monitor distribution and performance metrics.”

“Widgetbox has done a great job of leveraging our Truveo Open Video Search APIs and AOL Music APIs to create interesting widgets that users can incorporate into their sites,” said Josh Freeman, senior vice president of AOL. “By housing these widgets on Widgetbox’s trusted site, the AOL Widgets Showcase allows us to extend our popular music content and powerful Truveo video search to more users across the Web.”

“We make sure all of the widgets on Freewebs are easily sharable and publishable, and that was key to our decision to work with Widgetbox,” said Shervin Pishevar, president of Freewebs. “Today’s users want to easily embed entertaining applications into their own web pages, which adds value to the people who visit their sites.”

“Widgetbox has been instrumental in helping us build a widget strategy for our racing enthusiasts,” said Ed Sullivan, CEO of Infield Parking. “By creating a Showcase for our drivers’ blog widgets we have made it easy for our members to find and quickly get the widgets of their favorite drivers.”

Showcases Provide Flexibility

With Widgetbox Showcases, participants have flexibility to create the Showcase that best reflects their widget strategy:

  • Showcases can house from two to hundreds of widgets, and widgets can be easily added and deleted from a Showcase at the Showcase owner’s discretion.
  • Showcases can be co-branded with Widgetbox and co-located in the Widgetbox gallery for public access, or a Showcase can be exclusively branded and accessible via the participant’s site.
  • Widgetbox, through its powerful Widget Syndication Platform™ provides all widget management as needed: creation tools, distribution, promotion, syndication and measurement.
Widgetbox Adds “Get It Now”

Widgetbox also announced immediate availability of the “Get It Now” button for in-the-wild viral distribution of widgets. This no-code installation allows for any widget to be easily added to MySpace profiles, TypePad blogs, Blogger, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Google homepages and more.

Widgetbox “Get It Now” works by letting anyone get a widget from the wild, on a blog or MySpace profile, for example, and immediately install that same widget on their own MySpace profile, without registration or returning to Widgetbox. The Get it Now functionality works with all new and existing widgets registered at Widgetbox including those written in Flash, HTML and/or Ajax and works with every site including MySpace.

About Widgetbox

Widgetbox is the leading managed syndication network for web widgets. Widgetbox’s mission is to create a thriving web widget economy by becoming the trusted resource for creating, distributing, promoting, tracking and monetizing widgets. The Widgetbox gallery is the world’s largest marketplace for widgets and the Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ is Widgetbox’s exclusive backend infrastructure that provides the most comprehensive set of tools for the management of your web widget strategy. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™, Widgetbox Showcases™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

JANUARY 31, 2007

Widgetbox Does Blidgets

Easy Viral Adoption for Any Blog

San Francisco, CA, January 31, 2007 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com) the leading marketplace for web widgets, now enables blog owners to create a widget version of their blog. These blog widgets, or “blidgets,” are supported by the full promotion, distribution and viral adoption capabilities of the powerful Widgetbox Syndication Platform™, extending the blog’s reach far beyond its original domain. By creating a blidget and adding a Widgetbox “Get Widget” button on their blog, bloggers can more easily stimulate syndication to increase the exposure and distribution of their blog.

Beyond RSS

Blidgets combine the power of RSS syndicated content with the rich interactivity and easy page integration of widgets.  The visitor to a blog will see the blogger’s blidget and an invitation to subscribe to the widget for use on their own web page, blog or profile. Blidgets can be installed on any web service allowing users to post them on their blogs as well as social networks and web pages.

Blidgets expand on the functionality of RSS feeds by leveraging the richness of user generated content (UGC) of an entire blog and they can contain multiple visual blog elements. Bloggers can create a custom blidget containing photos, post links, images, audio clips, and other digital content. Users are prompted through a few simple clicks in the Widgetbox Blidget Maker™ to auto-discover which RSS feeds, images and descriptions are to be included. The blidget can then be customized to the look and feel of the blogger’s preference. Once the blidget has been created, a one-click integration feature easily installs it and a “Get Widget” button onto the blog. This is the same one-click integration every widget on Widgetbox offers.

Platform-less Social Networking

“Blidgets demonstrate the power and simplicity of our Widget Syndication Platform,” said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox. “We see the blidget as a type of personal expression widget, ranging from the widgetization of a blog to the widgetization of a personal profile. We expect to see many creative uses of this new feature, including the emergence of platform-less social networks—essentially igniting viral blog networks. The user-friendly experience will foster the growth of these communities as blidgets are created easily without technical hassle and complicated set-ups. We’ve made it easy to share blogs.”

Blidgets make it so easy to share blogs that they have the properties to become a social network in their own right. Through the creation and syndication of their blidget, bloggers greatly increase the exposure and distribution of their blog. Furthering the viral spread, when blog readers embed their favorite blidgets, they’ve added an expression of their interests on their own blogs and social network pages. Blidgets can then be just as easily shared among their network of friends and readers. This creates a level of connectivity between bloggers which has not existed previously, and allows them to interact with and support one another without the need for a specific platform.

Free Syndication Metrics Included

As with all widgets registered with Widgetbox, blidgets receive Widgetbox Syndication Metrics™. With these metrics, bloggers see a wealth of information about the use and adoption of their blidget as it spreads across the web, and can identify the biggest, most influential users. This data helps them understand their blog readership, and learn how to syndicate their blogs more effectively, as well as connect with other bloggers whose blogs they would like to support.

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. The Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ is Widgetbox’s exclusive backend infrastructure that provides powerful widget management, syndication and measurement. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™, Widgetbox Syndication Metrics™ and Widgetbox Blidget Maker™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact:

For Maya’s Mom:
Nancy Evars
Maya’s Mom
650.248.0709

JANUARY 16, 2007

Maya’s Mom Widget Launches On Widgetbox

New Widget from Leading Parenting Website Available Exclusively From Widgetbox

San Francisco, CA, January 16, 2007 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), and Maya’s Mom (www.mayasmom.com), a leading website for parents, today announced the exclusive availability of a Maya’s Mom widget from Widgetbox. Bloggers and others who publish web information of interest to parents can begin embedding the Maya’s Mom widget into their sites, blogs and profiles immediately by visiting widgetbox.com.

Maya’s Mom, one of the most popular parenting sites on the web, is an online destination where parents everywhere can find and share their experiences and advice with each other. Parents can connect through talk, journals, groups and much more.

“Now Widgetbox is making it easy for anyone to have Maya’s Mom content on their blog or site,” said Ann Crady, Maya’s Mom founder. “We are excited at the opportunity this brings to reach even more parents across the Web. There are hundreds of blogs out there that would benefit from having this fun content embedded directly on their sites ”

“We are thrilled to be the exclusive source for the Maya’s Mom widget,” said Ed Anuff, CEO and president of Widgetbox. “Through their featured listing on Widgetbox, Maya’s Mom will be exposed to the thousands of people who visit Widgetbox daily looking for the latest and greatest in widgets. The team at Maya’s Mom will benefit from tracking their widget progress using our unique widget syndication metrics.”

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. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

DECEMBER 21, 2006

Widgetbox Delivers Holiday Gift:
Makes First Web Widget Analytics Available

Syndication Metrics Now Available for Any Registered Widget at Widgetbox

San Francisco, CA, December 21, 2006 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), the leading marketplace for web widgets, made available today the first commercial analytics system for web widgets, called Widgetbox Syndication Metrics. These metrics, for the first time, allow widget developers to track and analyze the syndication performance of their widgets across a number of key performance parameters. Developers now have the vital information required to fine tune and improve their widgets and increase the success of their widget strategy. This is an important milestone for the rapidly growing widget market as the technology continues to move into business and commerce applications.

Widgets, dynamic mini web applications, are quickly emerging to become a key driver of traffic across user-generated web content such as blogs, profiles and individual web sites. By embedding a widget into a blog for instance, the widget developer is syndicating the widget content across the web and therefore creating potential additional exposure and traffic for the developers' site. Before today, widget developers had no way of measuring the performance of their widget syndication efforts.

"It's like Google analytics for widgets," said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox. "With this powerful and easy to use dashboard, we show the widget developer at a glance everything necessary to assess the popularity and effectiveness of their widgets. We give them a fine level of detail so they can easily track the spread of their widgets across the Internet and understand the triggers driving widget subscriptions. Armed with this data they can make adjustments necessary to maximize their widget exposure."

"For the first time, developers can easily see who their biggest users are, as well as their most influential users. Now that they know who is driving most of their new subscription, they can better identify and target their strategic relationships and business partnerships," continued Anuff. "And, because the metrics are a part of our Widget Syndication Platform they are powerful, easy to use and most important, free."

"Since registering our AddThis bookmarking widget with Widgetbox we have seen a dramatic increase its use and awareness. But before today we had no real way to connect a number to the performance. Now we do and it's a snap to use and understand. Widgetbox does a great job of presenting the metrics and making it a natural extension of the widget management experience," said Dom Vonarburg, co-founder, AddMe.com.

Widgetbox Syndication Platform

Widgetbox Syndication Metrics are seamlessly delivered by the Widgetbox Syndication Platform, the back-end infrastructure that provides widget syndication and management on Widgetbox. Developers do not need to change their code or think about metrics in advance because the platform provides the metrics functionality invisibly and in the background. Widget Syndication Metrics are automatically available for all current and future registered widgets on Widgetbox. The metrics data is retroactive since August 2006 and developers will see the usage statistics of their existing widgets since the day they first registered on Widgetbox.

The availability of this additional service underscores the power of the platform for both developers and users who come to Widgetbox to build, find and share widgets.

The Widgetbox Syndication Metrics are free and delivered as part of the Widgetbox platform, with no extra charge.

Widgetbox Syndication Metrics

With the release of the Widgetbox Syndication Metrics, developers have access to the following types of information:

  • Key metrics about subscriptions, hits, referrals and conversions;
    • Subscription – tracks when a person clicks "Get Widget" on Widgetbox.
    • Hits – tracks when a person views a web page containing the subscribed widget.
    • Referrals – tracks people who have seen the widget out on the Internet and followed the accompanying "Get Widget" link, bringing them back to Widgetbox.
    • Conversions – tracks which referrals have gone the next step and subscribed to the widget themselves
  • All data can be broken down by specific user subscriptions to a widget, and internet domain on which those widgets are placed.
  • All data can be broken down by hourly, daily, weekly and monthly increments.

For more information on Widgetbox Syndication Metrics, please go to http://docs.widgetbox.com/developers/metrics/. To register a widget, please go to www.widgetbox.com.

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. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

Contact:

For Six Apart:
Jane Anderson
Six Apart

NOVEMBER 6, 2006

Widgetbox Selected by Six Apart as Preferred Web Widget Marketplace for TypePad

San Francisco, CA, November 6, 2006 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), the leading marketplace for web widgets, and Six Apart, (www.sixapart.com), the world leader in blogging software and services, today announced the selection of Widgetbox as the preferred web widget marketplace for Six Apart’s leading blogging platform, TypePad.

To support Widgetbox as its preferred widget partner, Six Apart will add elements of the popular Widgetbox directory to the TypePad Widget Directory homepage http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/widgets/. These elements include Widgetbox’s New Releases list and Top Rated Widgets list; the lists are continually updated with the latest information from the Widgetbox online widget directory. With the addition of these elements to the TypePad widget directory, TypePad bloggers will have one-click access to Widgetbox, enabling them to quickly find and syndicate a wide variety of widgets to their blogs.

“This partnership is an important development in the emerging widget economy. Our goal is to continue to make it as easy as possible for any blogger to create, find and share widgets. No one makes blogging as easy as TypePad and we are honored to be working closely with Six Apart,” said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox.

“Widgets are a natural extension to any blog, and TypePad bloggers are eager for easy access to the widest variety of widgets available,” said Michael Sippey, vice president and general manager of TypePad at Six Apart. “We’re thrilled to be working with Widgetbox to bring their marketplace to TypePad users.”

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. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

About Six Apart

Six Apart Ltd. provides award-winning blogging software and services that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and corporations connect and communicate across the world every day. Founded in 2002 by husband-and-wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott, Six Apart has grown into a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco, CA, and offices in Europe and Japan. The company continues to lead in the blogging and social media industry with the Movable Type (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/) publishing platform, the TypePad (http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/) hosted blogging service, LiveJournal (http://www.sixapart.com/livejournal/) , an online community organized around personal journals, and Vox (http://www.vox.com/) , a free blogging service for friends and families. For more information visit the Six Apart corporate web site at http://www.sixapart.com/.

SEPTEMBER 25, 2006

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.

SEPTEMBER 5, 2006

Widgetbox Announces Web Widget Design Contest and Participation in DEMOfall Conference

Public Beta Now Open at www.widgetbox.com

San Francisco, CA, September 5, 2006 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), today announced the Widgetbox Web Widget Design Contest. The company also opened its beta program to the public at www.widgetbox.com, and has been selected to participate in the upcoming DEMOfall Conference (http://www.demo.com/conferences/demofall2006.php).

"I am thrilled to have Widgetbox participate in DEMOfall. It's concept is compelling and an important step in the creation of a truly interactive Internet experience," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMOfall.

About the Widgetbox Web Widget Design Contest

"We are looking for the most innovative widget on the planet. Enter as many widgets as you want. The grand prize: exposure for your widget to a large national audience of Web gurus at the upcoming DEMOfall conference," said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox.

Widgetbox will be selecting the five most interesting and useful Web widgets and promoting them on its homepage. The grand prize winner will be shown within the company's presentation at the DEMOfall conference. Widgets will be selected based on innovation, originality, and appeal. For more details, visit: http://www.widgetbox.com/docs/developers/contest/.

About the Public Beta Program

Widgetbox has opened the beta test of its service to the general public, allowing developers to share their widgets, Web services, mashups and applications with users of blogs, social networks and personalized homepages. During the private beta, over 100 widgets were made available within the service. More are added daily.

Developers are encouraged to register their existing widgets and Web applications within Widgetbox. Developers and bloggers interact on the Widgetbox forums with other developers and Widgetbox people to ask questions and share best practices.

According to Dean Moses, CTO of Widgetbox, "We're committed to helping the developer community distribute and promote their widgets to the widest possible audience, and fostering a dialog between developers and bloggers. We hope that developers will take the time to help us make this service as strong as possible by sharing their suggestions and experiences with us during the beta period."

About DEMOfall

Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information, visit www.demo.com.

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.

JUNE 23, 2006

PostApp Funded to Pioneer Widgetbox Web Widget Marketplace; Announces Private Beta

Private Beta Opens; Funding from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

San Francisco, CA, June 23, 2006 —PostApp™, Inc., (http://postapp.com/), a new commercial web technology company, today announced that it has received $1.5M in Series A funding from leading venture firm Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Mitchell Kertzman, a partner with Hummer Winblad has joined the board. The funds will be used to pioneer a new type of marketplace for web-based widgets, called Widgetbox™, that enables the placement of many types of applications, functionality and content into blogs, personal homepages, social networking sites, and auction pages. The company also announced the immediate availability of the Widgetbox private beta at www.widgetbox.com

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.

PostApp is creating a marketplace that connects web widget developers with bloggers and other personal publishers. Widget developers include online services seeking widespread widget distribution such as Yahoo! and eBay, as well as small independent widget developers.

PostApp offers innovative technology to ease the pain of widget management including the Widgetizer Engine™, a powerful but simple tool that lets you turn anything on the web into a widget, as well as tools that make it easier for bloggers to control their widgets quickly and intuitively.

"PostApp’s mission is to give everyone the power to assemble, share and integrate the best of the web," said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of PostApp. "We deliver a powerful syndication platform that serves the analytic requirements of large web widget distributors and the ease of use so that non-technical web users can easily incorporate widget functionality into their sites."

"With the growth of user-generated content the web is rapidly turning into a powerful applications platform. These small component-like applications, called widgets, deliver everything from advertising functionality to games to statistics and beyond. We increasingly see a world where there will be tremendous value in the creation, syndication and tracking of these widgets," said Mitchell Kertzman, partner, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

About PostApp

PostApp is the leader in creating a web widget marketplace that provides web service widgets for use with blogs, social networks, auctions and web pages. PostApp's mission is to give everyone the power to assemble, share and integrate the best of the web. PostApp 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 widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™ and PostApp™ are either a trademark or registered trademark of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

JANUARY 31, 2007

Widgetbox Does Blidgets

Easy Viral Adoption for Any Blog

San Francisco, CA, January 311, 2007 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com) the leading marketplace for web widgets, now enables blog owners to create a widget version of their blog. These blog widgets, or “blidgets,” are supported by the full promotion, distribution and viral adoption capabilities of the powerful Widgetbox Syndication Platform™, extending the blog’s reach far beyond its original domain. By creating a blidget and adding a Widgetbox “Get Widget” button on their blog, bloggers can more easily stimulate syndication to increase the exposure and distribution of their blog.

Beyond RSS

Blidgets combine the power of RSS syndicated content with the rich interactivity and easy page integration of widgets.  The visitor to a blog will see the blogger’s blidget and an invitation to subscribe to the widget for use on their own web page, blog or profile. Blidgets can be installed on any web service allowing users to post them on their blogs as well as social networks and web pages.

Blidgets expand on the functionality of RSS feeds by leveraging the richness of user generated content (UGC) of an entire blog and they can contain multiple visual blog elements. Bloggers can create a custom blidget containing photos, post links, images, audio clips, and other digital content. Users are prompted through a few simple clicks in the Widgetbox Blidget Maker™ to auto-discover which RSS feeds, images and descriptions are to be included. The blidget can then be customized to the look and feel of the blogger’s preference. Once the blidget has been created, a one-click integration feature easily installs it and a “Get Widget” button onto the blog. This is the same one-click integration every widget on Widgetbox offers.

Platform-less Social Networking

“Blidgets demonstrate the power and simplicity of our Widget Syndication Platform,” said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox. “We see the blidget as a type of personal expression widget, ranging from the widgetization of a blog to the widgetization of a personal profile. We expect to see many creative uses of this new feature, including the emergence of platform-less social networks—essentially igniting viral blog networks. The user-friendly experience will foster the growth of these communities as blidgets are created easily without technical hassle and complicated set-ups. We’ve made it easy to share blogs.”

Blidgets make it so easy to share blogs that they have the properties to become a social network in their own right. Through the creation and syndication of their blidget, bloggers greatly increase the exposure and distribution of their blog. Furthering the viral spread, when blog readers embed their favorite blidgets, they’ve added an expression of their interests on their own blogs and social network pages. Blidgets can then be just as easily shared among their network of friends and readers. This creates a level of connectivity between bloggers which has not existed previously, and allows them to interact with and support one another without the need for a specific platform.

Free Syndication Metrics Included

As with all widgets registered with Widgetbox, blidgets receive Widgetbox Syndication Metrics™. With these metrics, bloggers see a wealth of information about the use and adoption of their blidget as it spreads across the web, and can identify the biggest, most influential users. This data helps them understand their blog readership, and learn how to syndicate their blogs more effectively, as well as connect with other bloggers whose blogs they would like to support.

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. The Widgetbox Syndication Platform™ is Widgetbox’s exclusive backend infrastructure that provides powerful widget management, syndication and measurement. Widgetbox serves both the producers of widgets, including the largest, online distributors as well as individual developers, and the consumers of widgets. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

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Widgetbox™, Widgetbox Syndication Platform™, Widgetbox Syndication Metrics™ and Widgetbox Blidget Maker™ are trademarks of Widgetbox, Inc. All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

DECEMBER 21, 2006

Widgetbox Delivers Holiday Gift:
Makes First Web Widget Analytics Available

Syndication Metrics Now Available for Any Registered Widget at Widgetbox

San Francisco, CA, December 21, 2006 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), the leading marketplace for web widgets, made available today the first commercial analytics system for web widgets, called Widgetbox Syndication Metrics. These metrics, for the first time, allow widget developers to track and analyze the syndication performance of their widgets across a number of key performance parameters. Developers now have the vital information required to fine tune and improve their widgets and increase the success of their widget strategy. This is an important milestone for the rapidly growing widget market as the technology continues to move into business and commerce applications.

Widgets, dynamic mini web applications, are quickly emerging to become a key driver of traffic across user-generated web content such as blogs, profiles and individual web sites. By embedding a widget into a blog for instance, the widget developer is syndicating the widget content across the web and therefore creating potential additional exposure and traffic for the developers' site. Before today, widget developers had no way of measuring the performance of their widget syndication efforts.

"It's like Google analytics for widgets," said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox. "With this powerful and easy to use dashboard, we show the widget developer at a glance everything necessary to assess the popularity and effectiveness of their widgets. We give them a fine level of detail so they can easily track the spread of their widgets across the Internet and understand the triggers driving widget subscriptions. Armed with this data they can make adjustments necessary to maximize their widget exposure."

"For the first time, developers can easily see who their biggest users are, as well as their most influential users. Now that they know who is driving most of their new subscription, they can better identify and target their strategic relationships and business partnerships," continued Anuff. "And, because the metrics are a part of our Widget Syndication Platform they are powerful, easy to use and most important, free."

"Since registering our AddThis bookmarking widget with Widgetbox we have seen a dramatic increase its use and awareness. But before today we had no real way to connect a number to the performance. Now we do and it's a snap to use and understand. Widgetbox does a great job of presenting the metrics and making it a natural extension of the widget management experience," said Dom Vonarburg, co-founder, AddMe.com.

Widgetbox Syndication Platform

Widgetbox Syndication Metrics are seamlessly delivered by the Widgetbox Syndication Platform, the back-end infrastructure that provides widget syndication and management on Widgetbox. Developers do not need to change their code or think about metrics in advance because the platform provides the metrics functionality invisibly and in the background. Widget Syndication Metrics are automatically available for all current and future registered widgets on Widgetbox. The metrics data is retroactive since August 2006 and developers will see the usage statistics of their existing widgets since the day they first registered on Widgetbox.

The availability of this additional service underscores the power of the platform for both developers and users who come to Widgetbox to build, find and share widgets.

The Widgetbox Syndication Metrics are free and delivered as part of the Widgetbox platform, with no extra charge.

Widgetbox Syndication Metrics

With the release of the Widgetbox Syndication Metrics, developers have access to the following types of information:

  • Key metrics about subscriptions, hits, referrals and conversions;
    • Subscription – tracks when a person clicks "Get Widget" on Widgetbox.
    • Hits – tracks when a person views a web page containing the subscribed widget.
    • Referrals – tracks people who have seen the widget out on the Internet and followed the accompanying "Get Widget" link, bringing them back to Widgetbox.
    • Conversions – tracks which referrals have gone the next step and subscribed to the widget themselves
  • All data can be broken down by specific user subscriptions to a widget, and internet domain on which those widgets are placed.
  • All data can be broken down by hourly, daily, weekly and monthly increments.

For more information on Widgetbox Syndication Metrics, please go to http://docs.widgetbox.com/developers/metrics/. To register a widget, please go to www.widgetbox.com.

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. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

Contact:

For Six Apart:
Jane Anderson
Six Apart

NOVEMBER 6, 2006

Widgetbox Selected by Six Apart as Preferred Web Widget Marketplace for TypePad

San Francisco, CA, November 6, 2006 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), the leading marketplace for web widgets, and Six Apart, (www.sixapart.com), the world leader in blogging software and services, today announced the selection of Widgetbox as the preferred web widget marketplace for Six Apart’s leading blogging platform, TypePad.

To support Widgetbox as its preferred widget partner, Six Apart will add elements of the popular Widgetbox directory to the TypePad Widget Directory homepage http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/widgets/. These elements include Widgetbox’s New Releases list and Top Rated Widgets list; the lists are continually updated with the latest information from the Widgetbox online widget directory. With the addition of these elements to the TypePad widget directory, TypePad bloggers will have one-click access to Widgetbox, enabling them to quickly find and syndicate a wide variety of widgets to their blogs.

“This partnership is an important development in the emerging widget economy. Our goal is to continue to make it as easy as possible for any blogger to create, find and share widgets. No one makes blogging as easy as TypePad and we are honored to be working closely with Six Apart,” said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox.

“Widgets are a natural extension to any blog, and TypePad bloggers are eager for easy access to the widest variety of widgets available,” said Michael Sippey, vice president and general manager of TypePad at Six Apart. “We’re thrilled to be working with Widgetbox to bring their marketplace to TypePad users.”

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. For more information, please see www.widgetbox.com.

About Six Apart

Six Apart Ltd. provides award-winning blogging software and services that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and corporations connect and communicate across the world every day. Founded in 2002 by husband-and-wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott, Six Apart has grown into a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco, CA, and offices in Europe and Japan. The company continues to lead in the blogging and social media industry with the Movable Type (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/) publishing platform, the TypePad (http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/) hosted blogging service, LiveJournal (http://www.sixapart.com/livejournal/) , an online community organized around personal journals, and Vox (http://www.vox.com/) , a free blogging service for friends and families. For more information visit the Six Apart corporate web site at http://www.sixapart.com/.

SEPTEMBER 25, 2006

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.

SEPTEMBER 5, 2006

Widgetbox Announces Web Widget Design Contest and Participation in DEMOfall Conference

Public Beta Now Open at www.widgetbox.com

San Francisco, CA, September 5, 2006 — Widgetbox™, (www.widgetbox.com), today announced the Widgetbox Web Widget Design Contest. The company also opened its beta program to the public at www.widgetbox.com, and has been selected to participate in the upcoming DEMOfall Conference (http://www.demo.com/conferences/demofall2006.php).

"I am thrilled to have Widgetbox participate in DEMOfall. It's concept is compelling and an important step in the creation of a truly interactive Internet experience," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMOfall.

About the Widgetbox Web Widget Design Contest

"We are looking for the most innovative widget on the planet. Enter as many widgets as you want. The grand prize: exposure for your widget to a large national audience of Web gurus at the upcoming DEMOfall conference," said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox.

Widgetbox will be selecting the five most interesting and useful Web widgets and promoting them on its homepage. The grand prize winner will be shown within the company's presentation at the DEMOfall conference. Widgets will be selected based on innovation, originality, and appeal. For more details, visit: http://www.widgetbox.com/docs/developers/contest/.

About the Public Beta Program

Widgetbox has opened the beta test of its service to the general public, allowing developers to share their widgets, Web services, mashups and applications with users of blogs, social networks and personalized homepages. During the private beta, over 100 widgets were made available within the service. More are added daily.

Developers are encouraged to register their existing widgets and Web applications within Widgetbox. Developers and bloggers interact on the Widgetbox forums with other developers and Widgetbox people to ask questions and share best practices.

According to Dean Moses, CTO of Widgetbox, "We're committed to helping the developer community distribute and promote their widgets to the widest possible audience, and fostering a dialog between developers and bloggers. We hope that developers will take the time to help us make this service as strong as possible by sharing their suggestions and experiences with us during the beta period."

About DEMOfall

Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology market