Sproutbuilder Update and Alternatives
Last month nifty WYSIWYG online flash widget maker Sproutbuilder announced its plan to move to all pay accounts by March and like a lot of organizations I was pretty concerned about what this meant for my nonprofit clients. Assurances that Sprout Inc. is committed to the sector turned into the news that there would be limited free accounts and some discount for official organizations. Last week a modified pricing structure was announced and some solid information about what is available for nonprofits became available.
The short story is that verified nonprofits can create up to 5 widgets (sprouts) with 100MB Storage and 10GB bandwidth available with a free account. Other pricing tiers will be half price or $30/mo for 5-15 sprouts and $150/mo for 15-30.
While this is decidedly good news, I did feel the need in the interim to see what alternatives exist and if any are worth exploring in more depth. The caveats about any free application or software service still apply of course and the original Idealware post on these developments by Michelle Murrain is well worth reading.
At first it looks like there are more options and decisions to make than on a new cell phone plan. But when I narrowed down the field with the following criteria some likely candidates emerged.
Alternatives I plan to check out in more depth include Wix, PopFly (from Microsoft) and iWidgets. I have just done a little preliminary investigation and playing around at this point, but here are my notes on each and a longer list of the other options I found.
Wix: http://www.wix.com/
Probably the closest match to Sproutbuilder's ease of use and functionality but definitely geared more towards the MySpace style and audience. This shows in the widget building interface making it a bit jumbled and not that efficient for building tasks. They do have some nice add in elements like Google maps and a contact form. Free version includes a self-promotional footer when the widget is embedded.
Popfly : http://www.popfly.com/
I haven't made it far into actually producing a widget yet because it requires Microsoft Silverlight browser plug in to be installed on my computer and I am not sure I want to make that kind of commitment yet to something I may never use. The orientation here is on flash games and mash-ups, but it does seem possible to create content+feed type widgets as well. I would love to hear from anyone that has tried or is using this since the idea of easy-to-make, shareable game widgets seems appealing for some nonprofits.
iWidget: http://www.iwidgets.com/
Advertising is added to widgets that don't contain any of their own, so the fit for the nonprofit community isn't great. The interface required an initial set up that included URL links to images hosted elsewhere, which might be a slight technology barrier but the actual content addition and customization interface seems solid.
The others
Widgetbox: http://www.widgetbox.com/
Seems powerful but requires pretty solid coding knowledge it looks like.
Yahoo Widgets: http://widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/widget-maker
Also a probably a pretty powerful tool for those with tech chops.
Blist Widgets: http://www.blist.com/what-is-blist/blist-widgets
Pretty sweet looking excel spreadsheet type data display widgets with interactive possiblities but limited to data input/output as far as I can tell.
Dapper widgets: http://www.dapper.net
Offers the ability to generate a wide variety of output types (google gadgets for example) from data collected from a web site - static or RSS feed and might be worth another look.
KickApps: http://www.kickapps.com/widgets
Seems like widget creation is part of a larger package that requires a $100 minimum fee.
Clearspring: http://www.clearspring.com/services/widgetmedia
A forerunner in the widget field but it doesn't look like they have any free or nonprofit plans available.
These notes were the result of a very quick look around and I would be happy for any additions or corrections to my brief survey and initial thoughts. There are a lot of neat services out there and I know I didn't find all of them or look at all of the functionalities they offer. None of the ones I summarized seems to have the same combination of ease of use and power found in Sproutbuilder though, so for now their 5 widgets for free plan still looks like a good starting place for nonprofits wanting to create their first widgets.
The short story is that verified nonprofits can create up to 5 widgets (sprouts) with 100MB Storage and 10GB bandwidth available with a free account. Other pricing tiers will be half price or $30/mo for 5-15 sprouts and $150/mo for 15-30.
While this is decidedly good news, I did feel the need in the interim to see what alternatives exist and if any are worth exploring in more depth. The caveats about any free application or software service still apply of course and the original Idealware post on these developments by Michelle Murrain is well worth reading.
At first it looks like there are more options and decisions to make than on a new cell phone plan. But when I narrowed down the field with the following criteria some likely candidates emerged.
- Offers a free version and looks to remain so
- Interface to build widgets doesn't require HTML, javascript or programming knowledge
- Interface is relatively easy to use
- Ability to have many types of content on several pages or tabs - photos, video, feeds, text areas
- Ability to customize formatting and style elements, background, text etc.
Alternatives I plan to check out in more depth include Wix, PopFly (from Microsoft) and iWidgets. I have just done a little preliminary investigation and playing around at this point, but here are my notes on each and a longer list of the other options I found.
Wix: http://www.wix.com/
Probably the closest match to Sproutbuilder's ease of use and functionality but definitely geared more towards the MySpace style and audience. This shows in the widget building interface making it a bit jumbled and not that efficient for building tasks. They do have some nice add in elements like Google maps and a contact form. Free version includes a self-promotional footer when the widget is embedded.
Popfly : http://www.popfly.com/
I haven't made it far into actually producing a widget yet because it requires Microsoft Silverlight browser plug in to be installed on my computer and I am not sure I want to make that kind of commitment yet to something I may never use. The orientation here is on flash games and mash-ups, but it does seem possible to create content+feed type widgets as well. I would love to hear from anyone that has tried or is using this since the idea of easy-to-make, shareable game widgets seems appealing for some nonprofits.
iWidget: http://www.iwidgets.com/
Advertising is added to widgets that don't contain any of their own, so the fit for the nonprofit community isn't great. The interface required an initial set up that included URL links to images hosted elsewhere, which might be a slight technology barrier but the actual content addition and customization interface seems solid.
The others
Widgetbox: http://www.widgetbox.com/
Seems powerful but requires pretty solid coding knowledge it looks like.
Yahoo Widgets: http://widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/widget-maker
Also a probably a pretty powerful tool for those with tech chops.
Blist Widgets: http://www.blist.com/what-is-blist/blist-widgets
Pretty sweet looking excel spreadsheet type data display widgets with interactive possiblities but limited to data input/output as far as I can tell.
Dapper widgets: http://www.dapper.net
Offers the ability to generate a wide variety of output types (google gadgets for example) from data collected from a web site - static or RSS feed and might be worth another look.
KickApps: http://www.kickapps.com/widgets
Seems like widget creation is part of a larger package that requires a $100 minimum fee.
Clearspring: http://www.clearspring.com/services/widgetmedia
A forerunner in the widget field but it doesn't look like they have any free or nonprofit plans available.
These notes were the result of a very quick look around and I would be happy for any additions or corrections to my brief survey and initial thoughts. There are a lot of neat services out there and I know I didn't find all of them or look at all of the functionalities they offer. None of the ones I summarized seems to have the same combination of ease of use and power found in Sproutbuilder though, so for now their 5 widgets for free plan still looks like a good starting place for nonprofits wanting to create their first widgets.
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Comments
Just a follow up note to say
Just a follow up note to say that Sprout are cancelling their Sprout Builder service completely and "This means there will be no discounted subscription service for non-profits and educational institutions."
Agreed that widgets are low down on the hierarchy of technology needs for us nonprofits, but the great thing about Sprout was that it enabled us to easily create interactive web content for our site - without the need for paying a Flash developer to do so.
Now that it's being turned off, a will a lot of the content on our website will disappear.
Not much we can do about it, and of course they need to pursue the business model that's going to keep them in business.
It's just a shame that's all. None of the alternatives seem to come close to Sprout's features.
Hi there, thanks for
Hi there, thanks for summarizing all of this for people. iWidgets is free or nonprofits and NGO's, the policy is now documented at http://www.iwidgets.com/#about.price Also, every quarter we will help a nonprofit develop widgets, right now we are looking for a nonprofit with video content, if you know of any pls. send them our way! Thanks, Peter Yared, iWidgets
Thanks for the comments!Jon -
Thanks for the comments!
Jon - I agree with both of your points and hope the post didn't suggest that I wasn't happy with the new Sproutbuilder pricing model or that I am promoting Widgets for everyone.
I just figured that knowing what's out there is never a bad thing and found the array of options pretty impressive and worth sharing. By the way Laura also had a great post on the danger of focusing on "free" that maybe I should have linked to as well.
Justin - Thanks for the info! I will take another look on your site and follow up if I'm still missing something.
Hi, my name is Justin Thorp.
Hi, my name is Justin Thorp. I'm the Community Manager for Clearspring. While there is a fee for our paid distribution or to advertise within our widgets, it is absolutely free to create an account and to make your widgets shareable. If you have any questions, let me know - justin@clearspring.com
I suppose I'm kinda biased,
I suppose I'm kinda biased, since SproutBuilder founder Carnet Williams is an old friend, but here are a couple of thoughts:
1) For small/midsized nonprofits, widgets are pretty far down the "hierarchy of technology needs." More sophisticated groups should have no trouble affording $30/month, since they are already by definition spending lots more than that on the staff time to run various social media campaigns. If a nonprofit isn't getting $30/month of value out of a widget strategy, then they probably shouldn't be doing widgets in the first place.
2) I'd much rather see SproutBuilder charge a modest fee and stay in business than go broke while searching for some alternative to an actually-charge-customers-for-value business model. The era of free lunches is over. It was always (mostly) an illusion anyway.