Clearspring widget distribution powerful, and fast

It took almost a year for my Obama inauguration countdown widget to reach a thousand users on iGoogle (and Blogger) and also just over 1,000 on Facebook.

In 10 days on Clearspring the widget is at 397 installs.

Update: Then, 2,500 all in one day at day 17.  I’m still trying to figure out what triggered that. Let me know if you’ve seen it publicized or featured in a gallery.

It’s just one datapoint, but if anybody asks me I’d definitely have to recommend listing widgets on Clearspring.

My “Search this” widget? Not so promising. It’s been on Clearspring for 9 days and sits at a pitiful 13 installs. I attribute the difference to 1) fondness for Obama and a desire to show it 2) the popularity of countdowns—it’s become a standard genre in widgetry while a search box as widget isn’t like anything people are familiar with.

The search widget also takes some daily maintenance to keep the searches current. The time sink, along with the widget’s sad wallflower stature right out of the box, makes me start thinking about abandoning it. But not just yet. Ideas that don’t catch on might be stupid ideas, but sometimes they’re just not understood. I’m still having fun with it, and I’m learning something, which is valuable to me: I’m doing some experimentation with tricky Expression Engine templates in templates, which I’m thinking of writing up as a tutorial.