UserVoice adds widgets and funding…

Listening, garnering feedback, and giving your users & visitors a greater sense of community is a cornerstone of this new web that we use daily.  A company that has been helping others to do this is UserVoice, whom I first wrote about over a year ago.

Today UserVoice made some great announcements including a widget that you can brand and include anywhere in your web site.  This white-label widget is different from the usual overlay form we’re used to seeing as you can include it inline on the page. Letting companies brand and change sections of functionality to suit their web site, it also “allows people to easily search, vote, and submit bug reports directly on the host site”, making it easier than ever to let companies interact with their customer base.

As well as getting substantial funding from Baseline Ventures, UserVoice has a new advisor in Bob Pearson. While VP of communities & conversations, Mr. Pearson led Dell’s Ideastorm, which is wildly held as the industry-leading approach to the use of social media.

All of this is great news, not only for UserVoice, but for the web in general, as it helps us take great strides in closing the gap between companies and their users, and that has got to be a big win for us all.