michaelhweaver: Press Release about Widgets as Ads

CLEARSPRING TO SERVE WIDGETS AS ADS

New Ad Format Extends Advertisers' Relationship with its Audience

NEW YORK, NY, ad:tech New York (Nov. 7, 2007) — Clearspring Technologies, the market leader in widget syndication and tracking, today announced the launch of Clearspring for Advertisers, a new service that delivers widgets as online ads. The new ad-served format enables marketers to replace standard-sized online banner ads with interactive, portable widgets.

Unlike banner ads, widgets are shareable Web applications or components that consumers can easily grab and post to their social networking site, personal start page or blog of their choice. Posted widgets retain their viral capability and can be shared time and again. This allows for the advertiser's message to spread across the Web, creates a direct channel for marketers to engage in continuous conversations with their audience and lets end users establish themselves as advocates for their favorite products, movies, TV shows and brands. Sony Pictures Entertainment, The CW Television Network, Comedy Central, DreamWorks Animation, and Warner Bros. have all recently used Clearspring for Advertisers.

Sony Pictures Entertainment was Clearspring's first partner to use ad widgets for two movie releases this year - Superbad and Resident Evil: Extinction. "By using ad widgets instead of standard-sized banners, we were able to extend our time with the consumer and their network of friends, as they made our ad widget part of their personal pages," said Dwight Caines, executive vice president, Worldwide Digital Marketing, Columbia TriStar Marketing Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The CW Television Network, also used Clearspring for Advertisers to launch an ad-widget campaign this year to build buzz among teens about the fall season premier of the Gossip Girl TV series. The day before the show premiered, thousands of fans had posted the Gossip Girl widget on their personal pages. These fans continue to promote Gossip Girl to their friends. The CW's use of ad widgets instead of standard-sized banners on sites such as People.com and MySpace, generated more than 65 million widget views during the campaign launch period, and continues to receive impressions.

Clearspring for Advertisers is fully integrated with the top ad-serving systems including DoubleClick and Mediaplex. Clearspring also offers a full set of analytics and reporting tools so advertisers can monitor activity as ad widgets traverse the Web and repurpose media placements in response to each widget's viral performance.

Clearspring publishes widgets that can be shared on multiple social networking sites, start pages and blogs like Friendster, TypePad, Blogger, iGoogle, Windows Live, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Webwag, and Freewebs, as well as on Facebook and MySpace. Clearspring provides advertisers the ability to convert ad widgets into fully compatible Facebook applications.

According to Hooman Radfar, founder and chief executive officer of Clearspring, "With Clearspring for Advertisers, everybody wins. Marketers can make one media buy and have the potential to increase impressions and get more bang for their media buck. Creative directors and producers unleash their ideas on a new platform for innovation, and the advertiser sustains a dialogue with the end user, who becomes an advocate for the brand."

Built for mission-critical campaigns, Clearspring's widget distribution service is used by the world's largest media companies and brand advertisers, including NBC Universal, Time Warner and the NBA. Clearspring for Advertisers is a scalable, reliable and fault- tolerant service, with its servers geographically distributed to support the world's most successful campaigns. For more information go to http://www.clearspring.com/advertising

About Clearspring

Clearspring is the market's leading widget syndication and tracking service, used by the world's largest media companies and advertisers, and independent widget developers. Clearspring helps publishers and marketers extend their reach to the leading social networks, start pages and blogs and to respond to growing consumer demand for a more personalized desktop, Web, and mobile experience. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., Clearspring offers a comprehensive set of widget creation, distribution, management and monetization services. For more information about Clearspring Technologies and how to use widgets in your business or to join the Clearspring developer community, please visit www.clearspring.com.