The Widget Ad Network also enables advertisers to leverage premium publishers’ content to promote their messages across today’s most popular social networks, start pages and blogs via both custom and standardized in-widget advertising. The Clearspring-enabled ads will live within widget content that end-users engage with on an ongoing basis, extending the lifetime value of such ads far beyond the typical run of service ‘sidebar’ ads currently prevailing on social media Web sites.

In a separate announcement, Clearspring today also announced an exclusive partnership with PointRoll, the world leader in rich media online advertising. Clearspring will leverage PointRoll’s technology to incorporate rich media ads into the Widget Ad Network.

Numerous leading media publishers have already agreed to use the Widget Ad Network as their monetization tool for their widgets, including BETA Records, Break.com, CSTV, Comedy Time, Haystack Media, The Huffington Post, IDG, the National Hockey League, Spark Art, Twentieth Century Fox Television, UWIRE, X17online and others.

According to Sharon Merle-Lieberman, vice president of marketing at Twentieth Century Fox Television, “The decision to participate in the Widget Ad Network is part of a broader strategy to extend the reach of our popular content like Futurama’s all-new Bender’s Big Score DVD into the ever growing social networking market. To do this as efficiently as possible, we chose Clearspring, since the company enables us to go to one source to create, distribute, and track the results of our widget marketing efforts, as well as help us monetize the promotion.”

Several major advertisers have also signed up as charter advertisers on the Widget Ad Network. BLOCKBUSTER and Lionsgate Films joined the Widget Ad Network as a way to reach the social media audience in a manner more efficient than currently available. By having their ads appear within the widgets themselves, as opposed to ‘sidebar’ banner ads frequently ignored on social network sites, advertisers will have their messages live where the user is actively engaging, and thus is much more likely to view and interact with the advertisement.

“Clearspring has built a very respectable inventory of branded widget content and we see the Widget Ad Network as being a smart way to reach the fragmented Web 2.0 audience,” said Aaron Coleman, senior vice president, Blockbuster Online.

With Clearspring’s new service, publishers can determine which advertisers will be allowed to place ads within their widgets, and Clearspring’s domain blacklisting and tracking tool will provide both publishers and advertisers greater control and visibility into where the widgets, and hence the ads, are placed. Today, the Widget Ad Network offers six different in-widget advertising formats.

Clearspring’s Widget Ad Network is built on Adify’s Build Your Own Network (BYON) platform. Adify is the worldwide leader in vertical ad network solutions and provides all the ad serving, ad operations and ad reporting for the Clearspring Widget Ad Network.

About Clearspring

Clearspring is the market’s leading widget syndication, tracking and monetization service, used by the world’s largest media companies and advertisers, and independent widget developers. Clearspring helps publishers and marketers extend their reach to the leading social networks, start pages and blogs and to respond to growing consumer demand for a more personalized desktop, Web, and mobile experience. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., Clearspring offers a comprehensive set of widget creation, distribution, management and monetization services. For more information about Clearspring Technologies and how to use widgets in your business or to join the Clearspring developer community, please visit www.clearspring.com