Need Widgets? Microsites? Ad units? Sprout provides a powerful and easy solution.

Posted on 23. Apr, 2008 by Dean Whitney in Uncategorized   and has   0 Comments

In January Sprout launched SproutBuilder, a quick and easy way for anyone to build, publish, and manage widgets, mini-sites, mashups, banners and more. Include video, audio, images and newsfeeds and choose from dozens of pre-built components and web services. At first I thought this may be some kind of “prosumer” tool, nice for marketers or brands that that aren’t big enough for real solutions.

After a thorough review I’m recommending to clients and agency colleagues to seriously consider SproutBuilder for several reasons:

  • Robust design/authoring environment: Sprout provides dozens of ready built templates but its easy for more advanced Flash designers to create anything from scratch. Many of the common design tools are available and you can upload content including images, video, audio, Flash files (swf’s), and more. Adding these assets to your sprout is as easy as dragging and dropping.
  • Drag and drop components: Advanced components that you can add by simply dragging and dropping. Choose from slideshows, jukeboxes, RSS feeds, and more. Or “Mashup” any of components from our web service partners including PollDaddy, Google, Ribbit, ChipIn, and others.
  • Publishing and syndication: Publishing your sprout is easy, can copy the code to embed in any Web site, use the quick post feature to place in your blog or social networking profile. And once your sprout is live, your audience can virally spread it just as easily. Additionally Sprout has automatically publish to distribution platforms like ClearSpring and Gigya.
  • Reporting and analytics: Integrated reporting tools allow you can track the number of instances of the widget, impressions, clicks and .
  • Updates and maintenance: The biggest problem with Flash content including microsites, widgets and ad units is always making changes. With Sprout once the design is set its easy for any team member to change links, text and make updates. Updates appear immediately anywhere the widget has been distributed.

How easy is it?

Just to demonstrate how easy it is I spent exactly 18 minutes creating this widget using a pre-built template. What’s great is there is no coding involved and I don’t need to test in multiple browsers; check to make sure everything works; the embed code, bookmarking links, add to LinkedIn etc., and I can update anytime I like without touching any files – just hit the publish button!

For Developers

Recently they released a number of enhancements including a full SDK (software development kit). This is great news because it allows the development community to create custom components for SproutBuilder.

he SDK’s features include:

  • Powerful Foundation Classes: The SDK makes it easy to quickly build components based on Sprout’s robust component model.
  • Built-in Property Types and Editors: The SDK provides a wide range of property types and editors to allow users to manipulate and customize components. Examples include number spinners, date selectors and color/font selectors.
  • User Defined Properties: Developers can define custom property types and associate them with custom editors. For example, combine a 3D model data type and a simple editor to manipulate the model. The possibilities are endless!
  • Lifecycle Management: Components are notified as they are initialized, activated, selected and removed.
  • Undo/Redo Manager: Component developers can plug into Sprout’s multilevel undo/redo manager and history panel. The SDK provides fine grain control over the behavior of undo/redo for custom components.
  • Version Management: Sophisticated version management allows developers to distribute new component versions via auto-update or prompted update. Sprout supports simultaneous use of multiple versions of the same component to accommodate incompatible versions.

Watch the Demo

Here’s a demo of SproutBuilder from the Demo 08 conference in January. This is great but if you really want to see how it works build a Sprout for yourself.

Your thoughts?

I believe that SproutBuilder can be an essential tool for interactive agencies to build, deploy and manage Flash content. Hardcore Flash experts may disagree and/or find limitations with the platform; I was skeptical at first. Do you think this is a viable tool for agencies and major brands?