At the DEMO '08 conference, Sprout unveiled Sprout Builder, an authoring platform that allows anyone to quickly and easily build "Living Content" - widgets, mashups, mini-sites, and other forms of interactive and distributable web content. The Sprout team demonstrated the power of its Sprout Builder onstage at DEMO '08, building a sprout live and in less than five minutes for the band Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. Sprout is a free service and is currently in beta testing at http://www.sproutbuilder.com .

    Users create content by dragging and dropping rich media such as video, audio, images, text, shapes, and interactive services such as chat, phone, fundraising, surveys, and more. The resulting Flash file can be embedded onto any Web site, blog, or social networking profile or published via widget platforms such as Gigya, Clearspring and SpringWidgets. The sprout, which included video, a jukebox, calendar, and RSS feed, will be embedded on the band's Web site and MySpace profile, where it can be copied and shared by their fans, allowing the band to reach new audiences and keep their fans constantly updated with the latest news, tour dates, song releases, and more.

    Pre-built templates make building a sprout real easy. Choose from templates for musicians, politicians, causes, sports teams and more. Drag in your content to the placeholders and your done. You’ve just mad a professional looking sprout in just a few minutes time. Building a sprout from scratch gives you maximum flexibility. Choose from dozens of standard sizes or make your sprout any size you want. Sprouts can have from one to thirty pages (and the thumbnail bar like the one below means you don’t have to worry about creating inter-page links) Set your master page foreground and background then start building!

    "Sprout is bringing sophisticated content creation to the masses," commented Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO conferences. "Not only have they made Flash development simple and easy, but they also are integrating their authoring platform with leading Web content and distribution services in a very powerful way."

    "We're rapidly expanding our content and distribution partner offerings and constantly adding templates and wizards to make Sprout Builder both more powerful and easy to use," says Sprout CEO Carnet Williams. "Our vision is to redefine the way social media and even the Web itself is built by creating an authoring platform that anyone can use for any purpose. In fact, we've built a good chunk of our Web site using Sprout."

    You can upload and then add all sorts of multimedia to your sprout, including images, video, audio, Flash files, and much more. Manage your assets by type and by sprout so that using them in other sprouts is a matter of dragging and dropping. Sprout comes with advanced components that you can add by simply dragging and dropping. Choose from slideshows, jukeboxes, RSS feeds, and more. Or “mashup” any of components from our web service partners including Meebo, Ribbit, ChipIn, and others.