Check out the cool new feature we rolled out today. You can now leave video comments right on a sprout!
more about "New Sprout Seesmic component with Vid…", posted with vodpod
June 22, 2008
New Sprout Seesmic component with Video Reply
May 14, 2008
Sprout Raises $5 Million for Flash Widget Creation
Very happy to announce that we just raised a $5M series B round to continue Sprout blooming. Lots of work ahead finding great people to join the team, but now we have some horsepower.
April 24, 2008
RIA Video
Here’s a video that Ryan interviewed me at the Adobe Engage event to launch Air/Flex 3
April 21, 2008
Web 2.0 Expo
I’m back in SF tonight getting ready for a week of Web 2.0 Expo madness. I am flying in our entire company so that the devs can get a first hand experience as people check out Sprout. It is important that everyone in the company understand our interface with customers. Too often coding is about looking at the trees, but understanding the larger forest is very important. I am already tired just thinking about this week, but also very excited to showcase Sprout to the world.
April 10, 2008
Flickr Video Embed: Sprout Intro DEMO 2008 Launch
Cool.. Flickr now has video and it looks good!
April 4, 2008
How to Create a Rock-Solid Tagline That Truly Works
How to Create a Rock-Solid Tagline That Truly Works | Copyblogger
This is a great article on simply how to create a powerful tagline. We are looking to revise our Sprout tagline (Build Living Content), but need something very compelling to change. A couple thoughts I had this morning:
Build Content for a Purpose
All Purpose Content
Fertile Content to Feed your Customers
April 2, 2008
10 Tips to Widget-up Your Startup Brand
My friend Mike Jones (CEO, Userplane) posted an interesting article today to help guide marketers on how to launch an effective widget ad campaign.
10 Tips to Widget-up Your Startup Brand
10 Tips for Using Widgets (Well!) to Build your Brand
1) Make your widget engaging. Successful widgets let the user DO something. Beyond bling, they facilitate some social action on the part of the user – picture sharing, sharing of tastes in music, sharing a contest or poll – anything and everything social.
2) Use flexible formats. Offer your widget as a square, a rectangle, in various colors, sizes and shapes to appeal to the personalization desires and expectations of social media users. (more…)
March 28, 2008
What is an API?
Here is a great intro article on what is an API . It’s the software interface that allows an application, like a widget, to work in any given environment, like the different environments used by MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, etc. The widget needs to know the environment’s rules– its API– in order to function.
Showcase Sprouts
Kevin spent a little time last night going through the latest Sprouts – here are the ones he likes so far from a design perspective:
Gannett News Service NCAA tournament widget:
Vertical size: http://seed.sproutbuilder.com/fQCllBW9AvjaAfYa
Wider size: http://seed.sproutbuilder.com/KAB_eBOqAoJDD3Jn
This is a perfect example of using multiple sizes for a campaign. I like the design of their tabs and how they put a background bevel on the RSS component.
Gateway Worship
http://seed.sproutbuilder.com/jgBwQhPeAavty_f6
I find it amazing how it’s usually the megachurches that make use of new Web technology when it’s introduced. This design is great in that it makes use of rotated elements, which is pretty much impossible to do in an easily editable way with *any* HTML-based design application. That alone makes this a bit groundbreaking in terms of Web design. Element rotation support won’t be truly implemented in a cross-platform way in HTML for at least a couple of years.
I also like how on their “team” page, they’ve made semi-transparent buttons as rollovers, which makes a nice effect.
Tokio Hotel
http://seed.sproutbuilder.com/sgD09QxFArziRiGj
I like how they’ve taken traditional the music poster format/style and translated it into widget form.
Film Festival Gems
http://seed.sproutbuilder.com/bACjAxM1AiJO_5LB
Custom button images, image borders around scrollable text areas, and multiple movie trailers makes this pretty decent.
Clint Darby
http://seed.sproutbuilder.com/BwCJLxK4AjTgNCVp
I like how they’ve combined a SWF animation on the main page, and how well the slideshow effect works with it on the “photos” page. Note that making small scalable images is a snap with Adobe Illustrator, as you can save your Illustrator directly to SWF format, which ends up looking really good in Sprouts.
Tips from the top floor
http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/2008/02/25/tfttf276a-finding-the-first-pepper-tree-shameless-workshop-plug/
Notice the two Sprouts they have on the right. Their designs integrates really well into the overall site design. The small video widget supplements the main content, allowing people to have a richer Web experience without leaving the page.
