SproutBuilder is going to explode the world of widgets on the web. This is far and away my favorite product I've seen at DEMO, not just this year but ever in the three years I've attended. Limited beta accounts are available to RWW readers via http://www.sproutbuilder.com/readwriteweb
The product is a drag-and-drop Flash authoring tool built on Adobe's Flex. SproutBuilder lets you build very sophisticated, multi-page widgets with media, analytics and more. In minutes. With ease.
Let's look at some of the widgets that I put together using SproutBuilder. The first is a 3 page RWW Widget - look how cute it is! It displays our RSS feed (updated automatically every 5 minutes), followed by a YouTube video demonstrating Sprout and concluding with a slideshow of photos. Click on the "share" button and you'll see the Gigya distribution platform.
There's all kinds of things that you can include in a Sprout now and features marked "coming soon" include Meebo chat, Ribbit VOIP and PollDaddy polls.
I asked Ryan Stewart, Rich Internet Application Evangelist at Adobe, if he had every seen anything like Sprout. He told me, "Sproutbuilder is one of the absolute coolest use cases I've seen for Flex. I think it lowers the barrier to entry to Flash and I hope it's going to spark a lot of creativity among people who aren't creating Flash content today."
I think that almost any individual or organization publishing online would find great value in using SproutBuilder to put together a nice looking, highly functional widget to distribute their content around the web.
The other widget I built was this one for PulseOfPDX, a site that aggregates Twitter messages from people in Portland, Oregon. I put this together in 2 minutes. Imagine what someone with some graphic design skills could do.
All of this said, Sprout isn't perfect. It's got a few bugs in it still. Thus the very limited beta. I think the potential here is fantastic though. The team behind Sprout originally built the ChipIn fund-raising widget for nonprofit campaigns. They found that there were so many requests for customization and white-labeling that it motivated them to build a builder that anyone can use.
Just before Sprout another, similar tool called FlyPaper (Freshbrew.com) presented. It's slick and well packaged. Sprout though has been build with geekery in mind, it's API friendly, you can get the .swf file itself if you want to and given the orientation of the team this is a tool you can feel good about using.
Hurry over and get an account while they are still available in the closed beta.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: SproutBuilder: You've Got to See This Drag and Drop Widget Maker.
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Several of the major web 2.0 (I know, that term is so last year… or was it the year before?) blogs have someone at DEMO, where they… attend lots of demos, and blog about them. One demo that seems particularly blog-worthy was the launch of S... Read More
Marshall Kirkpatrick raves about his favourite from DEMO, which is from Sprout and the product is a drag-and-drop Flash authoring tool built on Adobe's Flex. SproutBuilder lets you build very sophisticated, multi-page widgets with media, analytics and ... Read More
Let's look at some of the widgets that I put together using SproutBuilder. The first is a 3 page RWW Widget - look how cute it is! It displays our RSS feed (updated automatically every 5 minutes), followed by a YouTube video demonstrating Sprout and concluding with a slideshow of photos. Click on the "share" button and you'll see the 
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This is fantastic, makes widgets mainstream. Anyone in the diy widget space give up and go home this has you beat.
Would be a great fit for yahoo or even adobe.
Reminds me of dashcode on the mac.
Posted by: Darren | January 29, 2008 4:31 PMMarshall - Thanks for bringing this to the readers - great stuff - already publishing with SproutBuilder. Thx
Posted by: G | January 29, 2008 4:59 PMNice! I will give it a try!
Posted by: Daily Tech Impressions | January 29, 2008 6:36 PMHello Marshall,
sorry for breaking the first Widget. Don't know how that happened.
Franz
Posted by: Franz Patzig | January 29, 2008 7:35 PMYou have no print button, or if you do i cannot find it. You also have ads from HP. When you get a chance give them a call and ask them about the new technology known as "print".
Posted by: Popa Chubby | January 29, 2008 8:44 PMMarshall - you're right, this does look cool - especially the direct integration with publishing platforms.
Posted by: James Lewin | January 30, 2008 5:49 AMLooks very cool. I think applications like this open up a totally new "class" of conceptual programmers. The easier it is for us all to create mini-apps and use them everywhere we'd like, the more innovation can be available to everyone. My post on Sprout, Yahoo pipes and Popfly here: http://tinyurl.com/2qp895
Posted by: Sam Lawrence | January 30, 2008 6:31 AMI tried to use the beta and it hung up on me. Thanks for the info Marshall.
John
Posted by: John Furrier | January 30, 2008 7:20 AMhttp://furrier.org
Yeah, I agree. See this sprout and post I did last night before going to sleep: http://www.salas.com/2008/01/29/see-my-new-sprout/
Posted by: PitoThanks everyone for checking out Sprout. We are working hard to squash bugs reported by the early private beta users. Keep those comments coming in. We want to build a product that you want to use. Contact me anytime if you have comments or questions.
Marshall, you made me blush.
best,
carnet
Posted by: carnet | January 30, 2008 8:03 AMFlash is definitely where it's at! WEB3D.0 here we come! Can't wait to try this*
;))
Posted by: BillyWarhol | January 30, 2008 9:53 PM