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iWidgets to Syndicate TV Episodes in Full Posted: 08 Sep 2008 10:15 AM CDT Tomorrow iWidgets, “the social syndication company”, will be announcing the iWidgets Social Syndication Platform. The main part of this announcement is that users of the platform will have access to entire CBS Interactive television shows. Those shows can then be distributed socially through the iWidgets platform. I had a chance to speak with the CEO of iWidgets earlier this year when out in San Francisco at f8. I found out that iWidgets is attempting to tackle a problem that many have tried to accomplish: the simple creation of widgets for those that don’t know how to program. I’ve embedded the iWidgets demo below so you can see how widget creation takes place. The widget creation studio appears to use a Yahoo! Pipes like interface which lets users customize what type of content is displayed within their widgets. There are ultimately a lot of widget distribution platforms out there but what differentiates iWidgets from the rest is their focus on social distribution. Pretty much all the other widget platforms enable distribution via social platforms but iWidgets claims that their platform accesses native features such as viral channels and this differentiates them from the rest. Ultimately the widget syndication space is getting pretty crowded but iWidgets believes that their focus on social platforms will help to provide a clear enough differentiator that they can carve out a solid niche. The company will be presenting their platform at DEMO this week in California. I’m interested to see how this company positions themselves over the coming months.

D.C. Based CollectiveX Launches New Design and Features Posted: 08 Sep 2008 08:26 AM CDT Today D.C. based CollectiveX announced a full relaunch of the site with a new user interface and some new features. Clarence Wooten, the company CEO, provided me with the video below. The new feature includes a wider user interface, drag-and-drop content modules and group blogging. So how does CollectiveX differ from Ning, its primary competitor? When asked this question by Robert Scoble a couple weeks ago, Clarence said that the primary difference is that “Ning lets you create a mini-MySpace. If you want to create a 50 Cent fan club then Ning is a great solution. We are more focused on groups that want to get things done.” In other words CollectiveX is targeting professional groups. While I’m not sure that this will be a big enough differentiator, CollectiveX has a great interface beyond what Ning currently provides. Many of the companies that use CollectiveX use the system as a private intranet rather than making it public. While CollectiveX appears to be growing quickly, they definitely face substantial competition from what Clarence considers a different group called “white label social networks”. I’m definitely interested to see if the redesign and new features can help the company start growing quicker. Given their proximity to the District of Columbia, it would seem like taking the customizable “white label” route would make sense for reselling to government organizations. For now CollectiveX is sticking to the freemium model but we’ll see if this changes as all in the coming months.

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