widgets Archive

Dan Frommer from SAI sat down with NY Times chief technology officer Marc Frons to find out what’s going on at the newspaper’s digital division. Last week we interviewed NY Times Blogrunner Product Manager Philippe Lourier about where their blog aggregation tool is headed. Frommer gets a good look and more information on the NY Times overall digital strategy.

The interview focuses on content syndication, widgets, aggregation (w/Blogrunner), social overlay (w/TimesPeople) and Personalization. They are also planning iPhone apps and APIs so that developers can pull data out of their content repository. I am very excited to see that they are thinking about widgets. Why not get the NY Times content out all over the Web and potentially monetize the widgets or do a revshare with the partner sites. Frommer grabbed a screenshot of what the most popular widget might look like when it launches this summer.

I’d like to see more content discovery — the site is certainly overwhelming in content. What works in print doesn’t always translate to the Web. Perhaps they can learn from the Web 2.0 services that are creating strong discovery engines based on your profile and preferences.

As I pointed out to Philippe, the NY Times is sitting on a gold mine and they haven’t opened the doors yet to share and sell the gold. The online news landscape could change once those doors open up.

Web-top publishing platform Wix is announcing that they are opening their beta today to the public. Previously they were running under a private beta. I spoke with Wix Co-CEO Allon Bloch who shared some stats about usage. He said there are “tens of thousands” of Wix users and many become power users. He also noted that the beta has helped the team to see that Wix could become a publishing platform.

Musicians like Kanye West and artists are using Wix as a way of promoting specific artists and events. Wix is also SEO-friendly unlike many of the current publishing platforms and add-ons.

Check out our interview with Allon to learn more about Wix.

During the panel that I moderated at Graphing Social Patterns this week, Jodi McDermott from Clearspring noted that companies can swap out what’s inside of a widget to extend the life of the widget. This is something everyone knows but is it something we’ve actually thought about from the publisher’s perspective?

Widgets are great as they provide more interactivity than any other form of advertising. Whether it’s a brand, a company, a Web site, a blog or any online service, widgets bring users closer than ever before. When a user installs a widget that was sent to them or one they found and shared, what terms of use come bundled with the widget? Most widgets I’ve run have never asked for my acceptance of any terms — they just allow for immediate installation.

Let’s assume that The Incredible Hulk movie purchases widget placements through a widget distributor. Fans of the Hulk install the fun widget on their Web sites and blogs. The movie is now out of theaters and the ad run is over. Can the widget distributor now stick anything they want into the slot? Do the Web sites have to approve the swap? At a minimum, should the Web site or blog publisher be notified of the change? The panelists believed that brands wouldn’t want to hurt their reputation with customers so they would never swap out the widget content with something controversial. While I agree with this, most brands are currently using a third-party to handle the widget management – can we trust these companies the same way?

The easy answer is to say that the publisher will see the changed content and remove the widget if needed. That’s easy to assume if the widget is installed site-wide. But if the widget has been installed on a specific content page, the publisher won’t see it until it’s potentially too late.

The IAB and other industry groups have begun to discuss standards for widgets and widget advertising. Should we begin to discuss standards for usage and widget lifetimes? When you install a widget, should there be a clear understanding of how the widget will be used, both today and in the future? I say yes.

NY-based KickApps is announcing a new distribution partnership with widget network Clearspring today. Clearspring will begin to promote the KickApps Widget Studio and KickApps will push its members to use the suite of widget tools that Clearspring provides.

KickApps reports over 24,000 publishers on their network using widgets and comScore reports 47.5 million unique widget viewers in April 2008 on the Clearspring network. This deal benefits KickApps by extending distribution to the large member base on the Clearspring network.

Widgets are finally starting to take shape as a real online marketing vehicle. Over half of the sessions at Graphing Social Patterns this week are focused around widgets. Check out KickApps CEO Alex Blum’s article on the value of widgets.

Editor’s note: KickApps is a sponsor on our sister site, HTMLCenter.

I will be moderating a panel on Widgets, “The Joy of Widgets: Everything You Want to Know But Were Afraid to Ask” on Tuesday at Graphing Social Patterns. On the panel are: Alex Bard, Goowy; Jodi McDermott, Clearspring; Ro Choy, Rockyou; Carnet Williams, Sprout.

I am thinking of focusing on three main areas: distribution, monetization and analytics. If you have any questions you’d like me to ask the panel of experts, please send them in. I’d like to make the panel as interactive as possible and that includes feedback from all of the CN readers.

Send in your ideas!

Yesterday we posted an interview with Allon Bloch of Wix. Allon describes Wix as, "Wix is a web-top publishing platform. We believe it could become the platform people use when they want to publish something online, whether it’s a business site, a family site, widget, flyer, blog etc."

Today we are back with invites to the private beta! If you would like one, just complete the form in the Wix widget below.

Free MySpace Comments – Wix.com

MediaForge is announcing the launch of what I am calling "social marketing widgets" today. The concept is pretty innovative and interesting. I spoke with founder Tony Zito to learn more about the product offering and why it works.

Here’s how the service works:

• Brands purchase ads in traditional banner slots
• In place of the banner a widget is served from MediaForge
• The consumer can choose to install the widget and it’s installed to their desktop
• The brand now has an instant link to the consumer to push sales, promotions, news, and basically anything else they wish

In my opinion it’s better than any email campaign could ever hope to be. Your loyal consumers telling a brand to send them information direct to their desktop. Overstock was one of their beta clients and this new social marketing option helped to drive down consumer acquisition costs.

The company is based in Salt Lake City and there are 7 people on the team. Zito noted that they are able to create the widgets in less than a week and they are using Adobe Air technology to power the desktop widgets. They have been working on the development for about six months.

This concept is hot and I bet we will see more brands using this over the next year.