Atlantic Records Time Capsule is the ultimate collectors limited edition box set. The set includes a full-color book and reproductions of backstage passes, handbills, posters and tickets stubs accompany the main event: one 7″ vinyl record and 8 CDs with 130 tracks spanning six decades of crucial releases! These include hits from Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Bobby Darin, Sonny & Cher, Led Zeppelin, ELP, Yes, INXS, Genesis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Bette Midler, Stone Temple Pilots and countless others!

The Atlantic Records Time Capsule widget (powered by Widgetmatic) tries to capture the nostalgia behind the Atlantic Records Time Capsule by trying to replicate a turn table complete with scratches and needle drops. We also incorporated a “Dial-N-Time” slider that lets user “dial” into their favorite time period and a library of artists included in the capsule. You can check it out for yourself here or online at www.atlantictimecapsule.com/widget

Video has always been a key component on widgets. With their growing popularity, online videos quickly and easily be integrated into both custom and prefab Widgetmatic widgets. Our new video panels support most popular online video formats including Adobe FLVs (FLV, F4V, H.264, i.e.), YouTube, and Vimeo.

People in the U.S. have steadily increased the amount of time they spend watching videos online. More than 75% of U.S. Internet users watched videos online according to comScore Networks Inc.

Video content is usually a key component of most of music and entertainment industry client’s widgets! (Think music videos, movie trailers, video game footage, i.e.). Retail and consumer brands also make use of video in widgets by running commercial clips, customer testimonials, and TV press footage as part of their social media marketing mix.

To see example of Widgetmatic video in action, you can checkout the AAAnswers widget (YouTube example) and the Winder Wonder Slam widget.

While many people use Adobe Flash-based widgets on the Web, dashboard widgets (such as Yahoo! Widget Engine, Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets, MacOS X gadgets, i.e.) have allowed users to access the same widget functionality on their own desktop. While many of the desktop widget plaforms have decent (but varying) support for Flash, Adobe’s AIR SDK makes it possible to run Flash widgets as native applications on your desktop with a lot of the modern conveniences found in Microsoft Windows-based applications.

Widgetmatic’s W600 series now has Adobe AIR support that makes both web and desktop deployment possible. The W600 continues to support Yahoo! Widget Engine, Microsoft Vista Sidebar Gadgets and MacOS X Gadget deployments for the desktop, but its new AIR support gives it the unique ability to deliver a broad range of advanced features which include:

• Local file access
• Encrypted local storage
• Abillity to launch/run at startup
• Seamless installation on multiple platforms
• Drag-and-drop desktop support
• Web-to-desktop communication and integration
• Digitally signed widgets
• Web-based installer

You have about 100 days left till April 5^th, 2010 when your Clearspring widgets will stop working (unless you switch to their AddThis platform, Gigya or another widget sharing provider).  In general, deprecating (or doing away with) your APIs in this way is not a good idea to grow your customer base! A lot of widgets “in the wild” will quit working on April 5^th and will only serve to irritate users who want to share widgets and publisher who don’t have access to the original widget source code or who simply cannot upgrade them. You can consult the Clearspring transition guide for more information. But here is a high level summary:

• Clearspring hosted widgets: Widgets that user Clearspring hosting will be most adversely affected. After April 5^th, they will simply “disappear”.
• Clearspring In-Kernel API: Widgets that were developed correctly (with support for error handling) may continue functioning correctly but sharing and reporting will no long work. Many widgets without proper support for error handling will hang or generate errors.
• Reporting and Analytics: This will go away entirely with no planned future support. According to Clearspring: “AddThis does NOT offer analytics for widget views and widget interactions.” – Clearspring suggests you use Google Analytics or Omniture – good luck people!

Recommendations:

• Switch to Gigya: Based on what we know, AddThis is NOT an adequate replacement for the existing Clearspring API since reporting, analytics and the Launchpad are all going away! Gigya provides the same level of sharing support, is easier to implement and has comparable reporting capabilities.
• Host your Own Widgets: Avoid “solutions” that promise “free” hosting, either host it yourself or pay your social media or widget developer to host it for you. Don’t be fooled twice, there is no “free lunch” on the Internet (at least not for very long).
• Build or Buy Better Widgets: Most of our widgets and widget platforms are XML-driven and built to allow clients to switch out or replace their widget sharing and analytics provider on the fly. Most widget running on the Widgetmatic 600 platform, for example, will automatically switch to Gigya with no re-work, re-deployment or re-adjustment necessary. In the future, consider a similar “plug-n-play” sharing approach that will allow you to switch out widget sharing providers.
• Start Implementing a Migration Strategy: Music labels, publishers and entertainment companies with a large inventory of widgets need to starting thinking about and implementing a migration strategy for their widgets, or your investment in “viral marketing” is simply going to go away come April 5^th! Contact us if you need help in putting such a plan in place. We’ll help you identify and inventory your widget assets, and work with you to transition them over to new sharing and analytics provider.