Daily Cup of Geek

I have a stack of half-finished blog posts I keep meaning to finish (no, really, I do!), but I think this one deserves priority because of the “wow” factor. =)

What is Sprout? It’s essentially an online WYSIWYG editor for flash that allows anyone to quickly create flash widgets (or as they call them, “sprouts”). Currently in private beta, I managed to snag one of the TechCrunch spots (check out their post on Sprout to see if there are any invites left), and have spent the last two hours playing around with it.

Here’s a “sprout” (also known as a widget) I put together in 5 minutes for one of my favorite bands, The Frames:

I’m lacking imagination at the moment, but not bad for 5 minutes and next to zero flash skillz, right? (As an aside, be sure to play the song embedded in my sprout… it’s called Finally and is brilliant.)

One of the really cool things about Sprout is that once you publish a “sprout”, your users, fans, etc., can share it and post it elsewhere. But wait, need to make a change? Just log-in to your account and update your sprout… it updates across the board instantly.

Ridiculously easy to use, this and other online apps like Zoho Creator and CogHead are leading the way in putting control over applications and content into everyday users hands. It’s like what YouTube and Blogger (and others) did a few years ago.

If you can’t snag a private invite to Sprout right now, be sure to sign-up for when they open to the public.

This entry was posted by Bronwyn Lewis, on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 10:53 pm and is filed under interactive, software, start-up, technology, viral marketing, web 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.