When Sprout Builder was first released in beta, this drag and drop Flash authoring widget building environment was immediately on fire. Although there was not much wrong with the original Sprout Builder, they have recently released a much more sophisticated version of their flash building services today. The new Software Development Kit in conjunction with authoring controls have seen a large amount of improvement, offering an excellent taste of the kind of extended functionality that users are now going to be able to take advantage of.

One of the new additions to the Sprout Builder service and its Software Development Kit includes full integration with Brightcove, Twitter, Seesmic and numerous other web services directly into the widgets that users create. The Software Development Kit or SDK has been slowly opening up to add additional support for as many services and developers could possibly imagine. There are also numerous additional authoring controls that are definitely worth noting the appearance of:

If you tried Sprout Builder in the past then you probably noticed that its first official launch had a few small kinks, but new improvements have cast these kinks out and turned Sprout Builder’s authoring controls into a much more fluid system.

- Page History –

Each and every page in the authoring space for a Sprout widget displays the last twenty editing actions that you took there, meaning that you can revert back, so taking bigger risks is possible without fear.

- Effects –

Elements can easily be set to flash at hover, to slide in at the loading of a page, or to perform a wide variety of other interesting effects. This is a simple enough matter that allows for authors of widgets to add some truly helpful finesse to the widgets that they create.

- Text Control –

Displaying RSS feeds has become one of the handiest possible ways to turn Sprouts into dynamic widgets. The text output in previous incarnations of the Sprouts utility was ugly and incapable of being changed but this is no longer the case. Now Sprout is a great deal more usable in terms of being a production level utility.

The launch of the Sprout Builder SDK platform has brought on a lot of extra potential. The SDK tool already packs a giant punch in terms of potential and productivity. By opening it up to outside developers, Sprout Builder is allowing outside developers to come in and greatly amplify the impact of the utility for added benefits.

The capabilities of the Software Developer Kit are growing increasingly sophisticated as time goes by, offering additional integration support at a rather consistent pace. All kinds of additional integrations will be offered in the coming months, including Seesmic integration that can handle recording videos straight to Seesmic from a Sprout rather than simply viewing videos, and Ribbit Click to Call which couldn’t be easier to utilize and has recently been taken live.

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Originally posted 2009-01-12 05:52:09. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Google Gadgets for Blogging on Blogger Ever since Google purchased Blogger, Blogger has seen the addition of all kinds of interesting gadgets that create additional functionality and personality for your blog. Gadgets are essentially widgets, but by Google's standard. You can show off your favorite quotes from movies, insert flash games, and show off the weather......
• The Downsides of Free Blogging Platforms for Corporate Blogging (Blogger, etc... focus on how posts may be deleted forever without warning, lack of professionalism, etc...) In a lot of different instances when it comes to blogging, making use of a free blogging platform can really come in handy. If you are writing a personal blog or a blog that......
• Are You Utilizing Your Corporate Blog To its Full Potential? If you are running a corporate blog and you feel that you do not have the customer base and the blog is not doing well, you may not be using the blog to its fullest potential. There are a few areas you need to examine to evaluate your blog to......
• SEO and Corporate Blogging When it comes to trying to promote your business in an organic way, corporate blogging is possibly the best tool that you can use. This is one of the easiest ways to implement SEO on your site with little effort and a blog has the added benefit of being incredibly......
• How to Format Your Corporate Blog If you are completely new to corporate blogging, it can be difficult to know how to format your blog so that it is reader friendly. Here are some tips to help you create a blog that is easy and fun to read. 1. Avoid run on sentences. Practice the art......

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In a semi-recent post on his blog Matt Cutts discussed some very powerful information about corporate blogging. We got a lot out of this post and decided to expand a little more on the subject. Whether you are already a corporate blogger, or thinking about getting started, this information could drastically effect the way you run your blog and how the public perceives it.

The first point that Matt covered was about leaving yourself enough wiggle room when it comes to product launches, updates or other big events. Whenever you set a date that is hard and fast, you are opening yourself up to a lot of potential problems. Let’s look at a common scenario and how this type of issue could have a negative effect on your business.

Let’s say that you use your blog to announce that on Date X you will be releasing Product Y. You start the buzz, everyone gets excited and your readers can’t wait. The countdown to Date X begins and as the big day gets closer, you realize that you’re not going to be able to make that deadline.

So, you post that Date X is now Date Z and explain that there is a good reason for the delay. Your audience is disappointed, and they may start to wonder about how professional your company is. While everyone understands that product launches are a delicate matter, setting a hard and fast date does raise expectations. If you can’t meet them, your audience may start to wonder what’s going wrong.

Date Z rolls by and you’re still not ready. You have another post about the new Date A, and once again, your audience is disappointed. By now, things look pretty bad, and you’ve already delayed the launch of Product Y twice. More problems occur, and before you know it your actual launch date is now Date D.

By this point, the majority of people that were really interested in Product Y will have moved on. You’ve failed to deliver, you’ve shown that you can’t keep a project on schedule and your launch will fizzle out. While some delays can be strategic and may increase demand, waiting too long and having too many delays will spell disaster for any product launch.

What can you learn from this scenario? First and foremost, while you do need to give your audience a date for a launch, it does not need to be hard and fast. Give yourself more than enough wiggle room so that if something does go wrong, your company is not going to be cast in a bad light.

This same principle can also apply to other promises you make on your blog. Bottom line, if you are not 150% sure you can keep a promise – don’t make it. It’s just that simple. If you don’t put yourself in a corner, you won’t have to worry about getting out of one. By leaving yourself that wiggle room, you’ll be able to present a strong front to the public and keep them interested in your launch or event.

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Originally posted 2008-11-12 05:15:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Ever since Google purchased Blogger, Blogger has seen the addition of all kinds of interesting gadgets that create additional functionality and personality for your blog. Gadgets are essentially widgets, but by Google’s standard. You can show off your favorite quotes from movies, insert flash games, and show off the weather in your region or a number of other interesting things. Not all of these gadgets are ideal for a corporate blog, however, so which are? Here is a look at some of the best Google gadgets for blogging using the Blogger platform.

1 – Followers, which is found in Basics.

Followers is essentially what you get when you combine Twitter with RSS. You can follow people, people can follow you, and people can subscribe to your blog anonymously if they do not want to be followed. This is one of the easiest possible ways for you to attract more traffic to your blog. You can follow other people and they will more than likely begin to follow you in return, bringing new faces to your blog rather regularly.

2 – HTML / Javascript, which is also found in Basics.

This gives you the ability to add your own code to your blog page, which will significantly and exponentially enhance its functionality. You can add your own opt-in box for example, in order to begin your own mailing list. You can also easily add links and images to your other pages, making your blog work for you better than before.

3 – Feed, another gadget found in Basics.

This feature will allow you to add a feed from another blog, a Squidoo lens or even your author page on EzineArticles.com if you are an author there. Basically, it allows you to link your pages together, letting your readers find other content of yours such as your Twitter or Squidoo pages.

4 – Countdown, which is found in Featured.

This allows you to add a count down feature to your blog. You can count down to anything you like, such as a birthday, the launch of a new product, Christmas, or anything else that you like.

5 – AdSense, another gadget found in Basics.

This is a great way to make some extra money from your blog. You need to make an account with Ad Sense first, so put a few blog entries together before you apply for an account. Then you can create your Ad Sense account and add your special code to the gadget in order to begin earning money through advertising.

Adding gadgets to your blog through Blogger is simple. You just need to log in to your Dashboard, clicking on Layout and then Page Elements. Then click on the “Add a Gadget” link in the area where you would like to install the gadget and you are good to go.

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Originally posted 2009-02-20 05:31:34. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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