In addition to dropping a new site at Mashable.com, we've also just launched Mashcodes, a spin-off site for social networking add-ons. Mashcodes has been in development for some time, and gives us a great platform for hosting all kinds of social networking tools - layouts, graphics, games, videos and (yup!) even widgets. We've still got a lot of work to do to bring the content up to standard (if you thought the Christmas MySpace layouts were bad, wait till you see out lineup!), and a few technical kinks are still being ironed out, but we thought we'd roll it out nonetheless. The platform essentially allows us to post any media - hosted here or elsewhere - and provide embed codes to social networking users. Over time, we'll add tools for hi5, Xanga, Piczo, Tagworld, Facebook and lots of other sites.
I also hope to integrate the two sites more closely - every widget reviewed here will get a listing on Mashcodes if the creator approves, and we may consider whether to integrate Mashable Labs tracking, too. In fact, we invite any developer of widgets and other tools to get in touch about being included in Mashcodes (see below).
But I also don't see this as being competitive with any of the widget platforms or tracking services - Widgetbox, MuseStorm, Clearspring, Snipperoo, SpringWidgets and the rest. In fact, we're interested in partnering with those services if there are synergies. Mashcodes is more of a niche play that doesn't try to pander to a wider audience beyond the youth crowd.
If you want to get your tool listed in Mashcodes, please don't contact Mashable directly. Instead, email mashcodes (AT) gmail.com.
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