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Newsweek in da Sphere
February 25, 2008
I’m excited to update you with Sphere’s most recent launch on a major news site. We recently added Newsweek as a partner, joining a list that includes some of the best news sites on the web: The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN, US News & World Report, TIME, AOL News/Sports/Entertainment, CBS, Forbes, MLB, ZDNet, Washington Post, TMZ and several more MSM sites and over 50,000 blogs. Newsweek is one of the most well respected media companies in the world (off-line and on-line) and we’re truly honored to be partnering with such a venerable brand with the highest journalism standards. We’re very proud of the quality and relevance of our results on Newsweek, here’s what we launched :
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- *Related articles from the Newsweek archives;
- *Related blog posts from the Blogosphere; and
- *Recommended Blogs
- *Related articles from the Newsweek archives;
Sphere related content is on every article in every section of the Newsweek site. Here’s the most recent lead article from the home page as an example – CLICK HERE. When the page opens, just click on the Sphere icon link in the Article Tools box. This means that every article page on Newsweek displays both related articles from Newsweek and high quality bloggers, resulting in more opportunities for bloggers to add their voice to the discussion – a great opportunity for bloggers to join the conversation as well as reach a broader audience of readers. Always a good thing. Thanks to Newsweek for embracing the blogosphere and for their unwavering support in partnering with us. A special thanks to Kevin Stuart for his support and for nailing this implementation.
WOW – Link Love
February 23, 2008
We get notes from bloggers every day about links they discover from major media Sphere partner sites like WSJ, TIME, AOL, REUTERS, CBS, etc. This afternoon I got an email from one of our blog partner sites that shared performance data on Sphere Related Content Widget vs other icon links they use on their site. The data is really exciting on this end: Sphere generated 1,161 clicks on their site in January, more than double that of the other 8 icon links (1,161 vs 544) on their site. A great way to end the week – 
Here is the original email:
—– Original Message —-
From: Michael <X>
To: martin@sphere.com; conrad@sphere.com
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 12:40:55 PM
Subject: RE: Sphere’it Widget
Guys, We haven’t been in touch, but I thought you might be interested to see the use of our Feed Flair links vs. Sphere last month (Jan 08) (Mitigated by the fact that Sphere is a graphic link, of course.)
22 – “Add This!”
27 – “Subscribe by Email”
28 – “Stumble it!”
33 – “Submit to Reddit”
39 – “Save to Del.icio.us”
43 – “Subscribe to this Feed”
62 – “Share on Facebook”
290 – “Email This”
1161 – “Sphere: Related Content”
So, I guess sphere gets to stay on the island another season. WOW. Thanks for taking the time last year to make us this widget and for such a great service!
*Hat tip to Wanky Comics for the Link Love graphic
Connecting the Simple Bits
February 22, 2008
Dan has a nice write up on our site redesign….
CBS Fans Only’sphere
February 22, 2008
If you like keeping up with sports, videos, tidbits and scoops, you’ll want to check out the new CBS sports Network site, Fans Only. If you’re a serious sports fan, I think you’ll love their new site. It’s a social networking platform that you can personalize (similar to NetVibes or PageFlakes) to display up to the minute news from thousands of sources, virtual tailgates, blogs and game picks. Fans can free create pages to follow their favorite teams, adding multimedia content such as streaming video highlights, statistics, polls, rankings and chats. This is very novel. It’s fun, it’s interactive, confident and progressive to let readers “slice and dice” media.
I’m a big sports fan, the kind of guy that naively believes the Cubs are going to [Read more]
Virtual Champagne
February 21, 2008
Our co-founder, Martin, celebrated his birthday today. Working in a company with a virtual office, the best we can do is offer a Virtual Champagne toast – here’s to you Martin, Joyeaux Anniversaire!
WP’sphere
February 20, 2008
Recently, the Washington Post introduced Sphere It results throughout their site. While an honor for Sphere to partner with such a venerable publisher brand, it’s also another great opportunity for bloggers to join the conversation as well as reach a broader audience of readers than the early adopter blog crowd that has been immersed in blogs since 2003. Always a good thing.
You can find Sphere links under the Who’s Blogging module in the middle left column on all Washington Post articles. As an example, go to this article – Obama takes Hawaii and Wisconsin – click on the “Links to this article” and our Contextual Widget will open up, displaying blogs linking to the article as well as blogs writing blog posts that are contextually relevant to the article. Here is a screen-shot of the Washington Post Contextual Widget.
Washington Post has been one of the most progressive publishers in recognizing the value blogs add to the conversation – in addition to empowering bloggers to link to their articles, they’ve launched a growing list of WP blogs and have established an ad network for a select group of blog partners. Thanks to Atil Erkin, John Alderman, Brendan Monaghan and Jim Brady for embracing the blogosphere and for their unwavering support in partnering with us.
Jobs @ Sphere
February 19, 2008
Sphere is growing like a weed. If you have a full set of teeth and are passionate about building web-based applications for all kinds of publishers, you may be a great fit for one of our five open positions. We don’t care where you live, we just want people who love to innovate. Click here to see if one of these sound like you.
A few things that are super important for [Read more]
Sphere Facelift…
February 18, 2008
In case you haven’t seen our new freshly designed site, go take a look around and tell us what you think – www.sphere.com. Sphere’s new look and feel is the result of a team effort led by Dan Cederholm over at Simple Bits.
As our business has blossomed and evolved, our [Read more]
CBS’Sphere
February 17, 2008
I recently attended the Paley Center Gala honoring Sumner Redstone for his outstanding contributions to the media industry. It was a bit of a Who’s Who affair, Tony Bennett sang, Charlie Rose was the emcee, The NYC Media was in Black tie, joining Barbara Walters and countless stars who attended.
One of the great things he shared during his speech is [Read more]
HOPE
February 9, 2008
A company blog is an odd thing. Often it’s just one voice that navigates the conversation. In our case, that role has been mine. Our team is diverse, global and has different perspectives on politics. Thus, our blog isn’t a tool for political discourse and we all know how dangerous that topic can be amongst a large group of people. Thus, this post isn’t a company point of view. But, last week we were approached to run an ad in our widgets for Barack Obama’s campaign. The campaign was called VOTE HOPE. We agreed and as always, I click on the ad to see what happens. This campaign pointed readers to a Video called DipDive. Every so often, something really grabs you in media/ advertising and you just want to pass it along – in that spirit, for inspiration, I wanted to pass this along: HOPE .
UPDATE: If you had a chance to click on the HOPE ad for Obama, you might find this one sadly funny, just click on this image:
A Chat with Alternative Search Engines
February 8, 2008
I got to share some thoughts about Sphere with Charles Knight and Natalya Murakhver at Alternative Search Engines – you can see the post here.
January Wrap-up
February 1, 2008
End of last year, we decided to open up our data so everyone can follow along. Growth has been very strong since we launched our first related content application (contextual widget) in December, 2006. January was a pretty good and fun month around here [Read more]
Sphere is Always On!
January 23, 2008
We received an email from Tony Perkins last Friday letting us know that AlwaysOn chose Sphere as one of the top 100 emerging media companies that are disrupting user behavior and creating new opportunities in marketing, advertising and branding. It’s our first award and I have to say it feels good to see our efforts recognized It’s especially nice to be recognized alongside so many company’s that we gawk at for having developed really innovative technology. Congratulations to the entire Sphere team for this award.
Humanism Triumph’s Over HAL (yet again)
January 19, 2008
Congrats to the Automattic gang for being recognized last night at the Crunchies. Matt accepted the “Most likely to Succeed” reward for WordPress and Toni was named “Best CEO for a Start-up “. You can see the full list of winners over at TechCrunch.
Toni and Matt sporting their new hardware
As for the post title……………...
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