Clearspring, the widget creator, has a major update to its platform being rolled out today. It’s AddThis component, having been integrated into Clearspring’s’ company last year when it was acquired, is taking on a larger role within the Clearspring offering.
AddThis, which began as a sharing mechanism for web links, has shown significant promise since being incorporated into Clearspring’s overall product. With the Clearspring Launchpad for widget-sharing and AddThis for web page sharing, Clearspring had its bases covered. The updated integration, however, gives even more sharing capabilities to AddThis. It’s platform will now include web link sharing as well as embeddable widget sharing, eventually phasing out the Launchpad services all together.
What Clearpsirng is doing with this update is adapting to the changing environment of content sharing. While we spent nearly a decade creating hubs for aggregated content on the web, building up destination sites eventually led to the breaking apart of content for portability and easier consumption.
At this point, web content is so broken down that we have to aggregate it yet again in a more customizable format. This necessity of shaping the web to our individual needs is a promising opportunity for AddThis. Combined wtih Clearspring’s existing reach, the two platforms reportedly reach nearly 600 million monthly web users across the globe.
The desire to become the leading platform for sharing content means that Clearspring has to continue to put itself in an accessible position for publishers and end users. Appealing to publishers is still a major aspect of Clearspring’s strategy moving forward, as it hopes to implement its AddThis platform by encouraging placement on various websites.
Additional upgrades to the AddThis service include a more personalized series of features, including a custom view of an end user’s sharing options based on their region and previous web behavior. What this does is further tailor the web on an individual level, creating more value for AddThis as a socially aware sharing tool.
This also brings up increased capabilities Clearspring can offer around its analytics. Clearspring’s ability to collect behavioral data around web content sharing combined with data on widget interactivity gives the company a large pool of information to work with. Comparatively, this is useful to publishers and marketers, as they seek the analytics to support and justify their social media marketing campaigns.
At any rate, the future of Clearspring looks bright. Working behind the sense and gaining a greater understanding of how the web works will give the company an advantage when it’s ready to move deeper into analytics. Becoming another hub for shared communication on a global scale is something other social platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, are moving towards. Finding a way to be among the first to market for such a large undertaking will ultimately benefit Clearspring and its end goals.
