Sprout; a new web 2.0 initiative that has THE genuine potential

I have to admit to I am not quickly impressed by new web 2.0 initiatives. In fact, the scattered rise of new blogging, social & business communities and other web 2.0 made me really lost the count and to be honest, it doesn’t matter for me. Why? Because a mere handful of the initiatives are able to do the ‘thing’ that make them The Next Big Thing and make them survive, let even alone generate revenue streams on the long run.

Today, I coincidentally discovered a new service named Sprout. Sprout is a service which has – in my opinion – the characteristics to make it a success. It is easy, build on community efforts, easy to share and has incentives to promote.

First of all, what is Sprout?

‘…interactive and portable chunks of web content. Some people call them widgets, mashups or mini-sites but we just call them sprouts’

In other words. Sprouts can be used to make mini-websites within your blog, personal site, news site etc. The Sprout below elaborates on the wide range functionalities and potential purposes. See an example here.

As I already said, Sprout has the potential to become a new way of interactive sharing across the web. The table below specifies the differentiating functionalities of Sprout, YouTube and SlideShare briefly.

Especially the interaction of the web chucks is that what make them distinguishing. Youtube and Slideshare have already major communities involved and Sprout integrate the functionalities of these two and adds interactivity in order to gather new communities. Therefore, I’m curious about the expected usage of Sprout in the near future, I’m already convinced of its potential!