Pluck isn’t a new company they have been around since 2003 offering publishers social media functions to plug into their sites.

It’s interesting now to look at the uptake of their services and see how well brands/publishers have done since taking on their offering.

Clients like USA Today, Guardian Unlimited, Hearst Corporation and Fox continue to invest in their product and take on new options which would suggest good levels of success with their offering.

A leader in social media software solutions, Pluck helps transform how publishers, retailers and major brands engage their audiences and customers to discover, create and distribute content online. Providing the technologies for content generation, syndication and social networking, Pluck helps its customers more easily consume and leverage the new open content model that has emerged as the cornerstone of interactivity online.”

Pluck.com

Pluck work with over 200 sites in the USA and is now looking to target the UK for further expansion. They are well funded having been bought out by Demand Media for a reported $75m in March.

We founded the company with a vision for expanding social media beyond the traditional social networking portals. To that end, we have acquired and developed the components necessary to create, distribute and monetize web sites and content,

“Now, we are ready to expand the platform and model beyond our proprietary network. Pluck provides the technologies, people and partners to accomplish this vision.”

Richard Rosenblatt, co-founder, CEO and chairman of Demand Media

The key to Pluck’s success so far is that they have been able to integrate their products into existing web properties. This was a great idea because the redevelopment costs attached to making existing products capable of integrating comments, forums, blogs and rating systems is large. If a product can be licensed and results improve due to the implementation of these systems then the investor can see tangible results before a complete redesign for their property.

Pluck was founded in 2003 and built a world-class social media platform that enables leading publishers, brands, and retailers to grow their audiences by seamlessly integrating content, community and social media technologies directly into their existing web properties.”

Pluck.com

In a market that is becoming more and more white labeled, widget and plugin based Pluck should continue to do very well.