SpringWidgets is a company dedicated to the creation of Widgets for the web, founded in 2006. It’s a daughter company of Fox Interactive and it is going to close soon.

The closure will affect the 15 workers that form the present staff. SpringWidgets developed a widget creation platform that was used by MySpace (property of Fox Interactive since 2007) to insert advertisements.

Furthermore, their free widgets were one of the most used platforms by users to generate their own widgets that could be put on blogs and sites. I myself have used them on several occasions, and they were of a great quality.

The motive for the closure appears to be a cutback in spending and focusing on more affordable projects. To get the opinion of an expert in the widget market, we have put ourselves in contact with Isabel Sabadí, CEO of Iris Experience, a Spanish company that boasts the widget creation platform Widgadget.

This is her opinion about the closure of SpringWidgets:

The current economic situation is making large companies think about cutting back on their less productive divisions and getting rid of lines with unstable business models.

The closure of the two widget applications (SpringWidgets and Flecktor) on the part of Fox Interactive has surprised a lot of the sector given that, above all, the SpringWidget platform was one of the best, technologically speaking. There is speculation about the integration of the applications with MySpace (also property of Fox Interactive).

Clearspring has also announced a 20% reduction in its workforce.

The widget sector, like many others, see themselves threatened by a lack of liquidity and budget cutbacks by the companies. Even so, there is also talk that the companies are going to transfer part of its paper publicity to the online sector in 2009, therefore we hope that as the year progresses the results will look better.

It’s not all bad news. Newsgator will get €10 million in its sixth round, and I believe that soon we’ll see more investment in this sector.

Isabel agrees with me about the high quality of SpringWidget’s technology. From Failbeta, we thank you for your collaboration, and wish Widgadget every success.