This week I have had the privilege of interviewing Hooman Radfar. Hooman is the CEO and founder of Clearspring, which he started in 2004. Clearspring is the leading provider of online widget syndication services. When he is not busy building a better web, you can find him writing his blog Widgify.

Adam: Is Clearspring your first entrepreneurial endeavour?

Hooman: Yes. As an aside, it was not only my first start-up, but also my first job.

Adam: What was it that inspired you to chose widgets as your main focus?

Hooman: We saw two trends. First, the web was shifting from a publishing mechanism, into a platform for delivering online services. Widgets are an easy way for users to consume online services. Second, we saw that a next generation of ‘portals’ was rising that enabled users to aggregate third party content and applications – start pages and social networks. Widgets were a key way for publishers and advertisers to reach audiences that, increasingly, spent their time on places like MySpace.

Adam: How have things evolved since you first researched social networking theory?

Hooman: When I was conducting research, social-graph based applications were just starting to take off. Friendster and Orkut had less than 1MM users. The idea of social applications has gone from concept to reality in just a few short-years. It amazes me to see how the world is now shifting from social networks, to all web applications leveraging a common social graph.

Adam: How do you think that social networking will evolve further on the internet over the next 2 years?

Hooman: Well, if you take the idea that all applications will start to leverage the social graph, then it is just subject to your imagination.

Adam: What business model does Clearspring follow?

Hooman: Our primary model is targeted, performance-based advertising. We leverage our platform, data and relationships with publishers to deliver efficient distribution of content (widgets, apps, or video) to brand advertisers.

Adam: You have interests in other ventures, how do you manage your time between them all?

Hooman: Sleep less.

Adam: What are your favourite social media sites and why do they stand out for you?

Hooman: The social services that I leverage most are currently Facebook, Wordpress, and – increasingly – iGoogle. All of those have one thing in common – utility. Every new consumer technology, or trend goes through a hype cycle. At the end of the day, however, a service needs to have lasting utility to a large enough audience to be meaningful.

Adam: What do you think of sites such as Threadless and Kluster that encourage on-line collaboration for a positive business oriented outcomes?

Hooman: I love Threadless and Kluster. I think that they are absolutely fantastic as they leverage best-of-breed collaboration mechanisms to deliver a real result – better decisions. At the end of the day, collaborative filtering and other such techniques are useful only insofar as they solve the a valuable problem. Sometimes, technical entrepreneurs get enamored with a concept to a point where they lose sight of their true aim, to solve a problem better/faster/cheaper than anyone else.

Adam: Kiva and TOMS and two sites that are geared towards social enterprise is this a side of the internet that you would like to see expand?

Hooman: I actually know founder’s of both efforts. Jessica and Blake are exceptional people that have leveraged the Internet to solve problems that are – at their very heart – intrinsically social. In Kiva’s case, they are doing an excellent job enabling entrepreneurial growth in areas that would otherwise be missed via a micropayments ecosystem. In the case of TOMS, they are enabling the collective group of shoe buyers to help a disadvantaged group have shoes. Both are amazing.

Adam: What do you see yourself doing in 5 years time?

Hooman: Projects that I love, with people that I love to work with. Life is an incredible thing. We have all the opportunity in the world if we simply open our eyes and seize it. Clearspring has been a fantastic project and it has given me a lot of perspective that has shaped my view on other projects I want to work on. Thanks!

Adam Toren