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MuseStorm Bring their Widget Agency Approach to the iPhone and look to the Future

Widgets Lab | 23 May 2008

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When i say “Widget Agency” as a way to refer to musestorm is because they are exactly that in terms to widgets because they build or let you build and the take care of everything from there. right now. in the already changed landscape of widgets. yo could say musestorm is a part sprout, gigya and clearspring rolled into one.

And they want you author your own iphone “app” (as Apple calls them). that we know are no more than focused mobile websites. because there are already good ways to make a iphone formatted site and the best comes from Mofuse. but mofuse is more of a enabler in principle and a dedicated enabler second. MuseStorm want you to let you author your own iphone sites, but have them with a Widget twist so they can be Widgetized Mobile Sites.

And they are doing that for free, something remarkable but logical because they obviously want to look for mindshare right now. something they have been struggling because of the arrival of new competitors like gigya and now sprout that have generated quite a lot of hype for themselves.

Even then, free is free and that should suffice to most to at least take a look at what they are offering.

Now i let run the official MuseStorm Press Release that they kindly have facilitated me and continue the commentary and demos after it: ...

iPhone MuseStorm Demo

So no one is left wondering how MuseStorm works in the iphone, they got a demo to show and it plays slidshow of the widgetized site inside a iPhone Widget (fitting)..

As it can be seen in the demo it looks really good. as good as pretty much 90% of all professionally made websites for iPhone but without having to work or pay much for it and with way better analytics.

and that is the whole point to show not only the easy access to having a widgetized mobile website but having all the analytics to manage it too.

This is a video that got delayed a month ago when musestorm updated their engagement platform. now it is obvious that is got delayed because they didn`t had iPhone Widget Studio support ready or were not ready to announce it.. i will go with a bit of both reasons.

In this video, you can see how easy it really is to create a widget using Widget Studio and also how easy is to port it depending where you are using it.

Widget Studio benefits are stated as:

  • Combine multiple media (video, audio, photos, RSS feeds, and static text) as you like it— into your widget to optimize audience engagement
  • Modify your widget’s content on the fly at any time—to keep your content fresh, hone your message, or respond to audience interaction
  • Drag-and-drop sophisticated interactive features—chats, comments, polls, and user-generated content, without any custom programming
  • Easily morph your widget into a true Facebook application or Bebo application
  • Complete control over widget content, functionality, and distribution
  • Optimize your user’s experience with pixel-level control; specify dimensions, skin, menus, colors, and fonts

Another good points on MuseStorm were left behind as a comment by Ori Soen (CEO of Musestorm) last month when they first updated the engagement platform:

  • 1. The MuseStorm production studio allows users to create full-featured Flash widgets and social apps (including Facebook and Bebo). Unlike Gigya, ClearSpring and WidgetBox who provide a WRAPPER that allows developers to get their app on Facebook or Bebo (but it’s still a Flash widget), apps created on our platform are true FBML (Facebook) or SNML (Bebo). That means these apps can access the friend list, newsfeed and more! The MuseStorm Engagement Platform is really the first platform to allow rapid creation of social apps without programming.
  • 2. We’ve launched Bebo support now, and have had support for Facebook since end of 2007. There is no “grand master plan” behind it smile
  • 3. The most powerful module of our platform is the multi-publishing capability - you can create a Web widget (Flash) and convert it with a click of a button into a Facebook app, then into Bebo, Yahoo desktop widgets and more. This allows you to create apps that naturally fit within your end-user’s environment. We all know it’s not a one-size-fit-all situation.
  • 4. Tomorrow (Wed) you’ll be able to see a video tour of the platform and understand the power - check it out

Those are important points because it shows how committed they are to High Spread (they call it Intelligent delivery) and the quality of it. and that is also where the future of musestorm updates points. in the Widget studio you can already see the showed options in the 3 mediums they are covering:

  • Web
    Support for MySpace, Hi5 and Orkut (i would add Friendster, iGoogle and Windows Live to that Ori) for specific tailored porting
  • Desktop
    Windows (xp-vista) and Google Desktop
  • Mobile
    No doubt the most ambitious support is this area because you can see flash lite, java an even nokia widsets widgets support.

Concluding….

Musestorm raised the game and it should be enough to play against the recent Clearspring Update that aims to fight not only to musestorm but everyone in the widgetsphere.

I would also like to see if musestorm will give support for Silverlight Mobile and support for Opera Open Widgets later on this year. i am most curious about Silverlight Mobile because is just about to launch into mobiles this summer in Windows Mobile and Nokia High end phones.

Now the ball is the court of the rest of the Big players. now we only need to wait for Widgetbox, Gigya and SpringWidgets response to all this new development in the widget market.

Whatever happens. i will sure remember may as the month that changed Boosted the prospects of the widget market yet again.

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Widgets Lab