Snipperoo

Where art thou iGoogle?

Official Google Blog: Where art thou?

If you use iGoogle you sort of have to take your hat off to them for getting so many artists involved - even if Rolf Harris is in there somewhere.

Did you notice the chrome tulips on Google's homepage today? They are part of a special Google doodle done by renowned artist Jeff Koons. And that isn't the only art appearing anew on Google today. As part of our iGoogle Artists project, we have collaborated with almost 70 artists in 17 countries on 6 continents to create special iGoogle themes -- works of art that appeal to all ages and interests. Artists, designers and other notables involved include Jeff Koons, Dale Chihuly, Coldplay, Diane von Furstenberg, Dolce & Gabbana, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Michael Graves, Philippe Starck, Robert Mankoff, Mark Morris, Oscar de la Renta, Anne Geddes and Tory Burch. While the list of those who have contributed themes is impressive (I've only listed 1/5th(!) of the artists here), even more impressive is the art itself -- it's spectacularly beautiful! Until now, iGoogle has been about getting the content you want on your homepage. The iGoogle artist themes take personalization to the next level -- allowing you to select world-class art that really reflects your personality for your pages. It's what happens when great art meets technology.

As part of our launch, we will be holding an outdoor art gallery this weekend in New York's Meatpacking District, where on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights the art from the iGoogle artists project will be projected on the buildings, sidewalks, and streets. This is a map of where you can find the display. We will post video of the event on YouTube.

Fifteen years on, I was there on day one

The 15th anniversary of the placing of http/html into the public domain has arrived in the twinkling of an eye. Bill Thompson has the actual document that did the deed.

BBC NEWS | Web in infancy, says Berners-Lee.

The world wide web is "still in its infancy", the web's inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has told BBC News.

He was speaking ahead of the 15th anniversary of the day the web's code was put into the public domain by Cern, the lab where the web was developed.

I remember this time well. I reported it for my new magazine, The World Wide Web Newsletter. The first issue of 3W (as it came to be known) was published in the autumn of that year. It wasn't the key story (that was some eurowaffle), but it was the second news story.

I'd spent the spring and summer working on what started as a newsletter and turned into a printed magazine that sold on newsstands. I was working at Goldsmiths' College, University of London and had recently acquired a Demon IP dialup account. I had been online for five years and was only working at Goldsmiths' (in the Computer Department) to get access to the IP internet (though actually Goldsmiths' had no such access). Strange days.
I was a fine art graduate of Goldsmiths' who had been struck with a vision and a revelation in1988 when first encountering the networks. By 1993 I was fully aware of everything going on online. I took the name 'World Wide Web' for my little mag because I thought it was a great phrase. The web itself was so much in its infancy that the magazine was not a web magazine. It was an evangelising internet magazine that covered this new thing called the Web in passing.

I put the mag together in the basement of my flat in Hackney, east London, using a Mac and some desk top publishing software. I was as much in love with desk top publishing as with the internet.

The editorial for the first issue stated: "This Word Wide Web demands constant attention. It is the mission of the World Wide Web Newsletter to pay that attention, to keep tabs on the fast changing inter and outer net that comprises this new continent. This newsletter is aimed as much at those on the outside looking in as those on the inside looking, well, looking.

The Internet is in flux - we have little idea what tools and resources next year will bring, let alone the next five or ten. This is indeed a new continent, and I hope you will come along and explore."

I had just quit my rather decent job at Goldsmiths' (more or less the only real job I've ever had) and cashed in my tiny pension to fund the mag. I knew it couldn't really make any money, but I was determined to shout this stuff from the rooftops. Everybody I knew thought I was mad, but I knew. It wasn't until the following year that I started to earn money from this space, becoming Time Out's internet advisor. I exhibited at the first UK Internet World exhibition in 1994. I was hired as the launch editor of .net magazine - and that's where The World Wide Web Newsletter ended up. Then I went on to do real web startups. I invented the cybercafe (word and deed) and the domain name industry (NetNames, 1996).  But in the summer of 1993 all that was unknowable. Very few people knew what was brewing (Alan Meckler, I take my hat off to you), and most of them were highly technical. So I played my part in this incredible story. I introduced a lot of people to the web one way or another. A generation of journalists passed through my Hackney basement and went away converted. I've written and startupped and evangelised about it ever since. I still have the exact same love for it that I had in '93 (and in '88 for that matter).

Myself, for one reason or another I never yet made my fortune from this game. But I'm still working on it. Hope to see you at WidgetWebExpo. Widgets are the future. Take it from someone who knows.

Josh Bernoff speaking at WidgetWebExpo

I'm really pleased to announce that Josh Bernoff is speaking at WidgetWebExpo. Josh is one of the most experienced and long serving analysts and co-author (with Charlene Li) of the book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. His session is entitled "Using Widgets to accomplish business goals".

Josh has been at Forrester since 1995. Josh's research, analysis, and opinions appear frequently in publications like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Broadcasting & Cable, and on national television news programs. He writes a column for Marketing News, a publication of the American Marketing Association. Josh has keynoted major conferences on television, music, marketing, and technology in Barcelona, Cannes, Chicago, London, New York, Rome, and São Paulo.

Groundswell

Right now, your customers are writing about your products on blogs and recutting your commercials on YouTube. They’re defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon — the groundswell — that has created a permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat. You can see it as an opportunity. In Groundswell, two of Forrester Research's top analysts show you how to turn the force of customers connecting to your own advantage. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff show how leading companies are gaining insights, generating revenues, saving money, and energizing their own customers. Whether you’re in marketing, research, support, sales, development, or even running the whole enterprise, there’s targeted advice here for you, backed up with real-world ROI to prove it works. Groundswell is based on hard consumer data and experience with dozens of companies, large and small, from Procter & Gamble to Ernst & Young to a tiny but wildly successful winery in South Africa. Hoping to learn how to take advantage of communities, blogs, wikis, Facebook, or YouTube? We've got lots of examples with proof they work.

Video in Widgets

ScanScout Partners With Clearspring

Expanding the reach of its contextual in-video ad technology, ScanScout today is expected to announce a distribution deal with widget company Clearspring Technologies. The partnership gives advertisers within the ScanScout network access to broad viral distribution across some 25 social platforms, including MySpace, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo. "Our partnership enables ScanScout to provide advertisers an automated way to essentially 'widgetize' their video ads bringing broader reach and interest to their message," said Hooman Radfar, co-founder and chief executive officer of Clearspring. Over the last two years, widgets have surged in popularity because their presence is controlled entirely by the users themselves--unlike pop-ups--and are generally used to complement social networking and blogging experiences. Indeed, according to comScore, nearly 148 million U.S. consumers--or 81% of Web users--viewed widgets in November of last year. Widget ads, meanwhile, are expected to boost social network advertising by 70% to $1.6 billion in 2008, according to a recent projection by eMarketer.

Hooman Radfar will be making a keynote address at the WidgetWebExpo in June

Widgets: The Marketer’s Recession Survival Tool

Michael Jones, CEO of AOL owned Userplane, writes a guest post for TechCrunch:

Widgets: The Marketer’s Recession Survival Tool

Widgets: The Macro Promise of Micro-markets

The top widget providers are proving that widgets can be big business. Slide and Userplane, of which I’m CEO, are two successful providers of distributed applications. Slide’s recent $500M valuation gives credence to the huge potential of these small attention grabbers. The success of today’s widgets is largely a function of the hundreds of millions of ad views they garner each day.

In April 2007, comScore estimated that widgets reach 177M people every month, or 21% of the worldwide online audience. Currently, only a fraction of widget traffic – perhaps as little as 0.5% - is being monetized. And that 0.5% is being monetized most frequently through traditional CPM models. In order for widgets to pay off in the long term, however, new models are required that will drive revenue beyond the top few widget providers and generate significant returns for all customers investing ad dollars.

Brands are changing the way they view online advertising and are becoming more concerned about reaching audiences based on their interests and actions, through so-called behavioral targeting. Traditional brand affinity concerns are taking a back seat to a willingness to meet users on their own terms. And, it doesn’t stop there. Marketing will align with individual social graphs as well.

The idea of a brand’s squeaky-clean “image” appearing next to a porn star would have been cause for reprimand in the old school of media buying. Yet in online advertising, it seems to slide. The new model of advertising, which is focused on customer behavior, makes it not only okay but necessary to meet customers within their preferred areas of interest, or “micro-markets”.

Widget providers are gathering the kind of intelligence that allows for this sophisticated behavioral targeting. They can assure brands before investing ad dollars that particular users are interested in their product or service. If behavioral intelligence demonstrates that a particular consumer is effectively engaged by the brand in proximity to MySpace vampires with blood-coated fangs, the new breed of media buyers will be more willing to put their old placement fears aside.

David Cushman makes a widget

David Cushman, my favourite media employee, writes about the how and the why of building his own widget:

Publishing possibilities now and beyond: Build a widget! Experience the disruption of distribution

Its worth noting that this works because we live digitally in a community context. It's what the network is all about. There would be little point in me sharing what I think is cool unless I expect you might, too. We do this sharing within our networks of trust. Just as we share links in twitter or thoughts on blogposts. If you've found this it is because we share some interests.

There is residual mass media thinking in the notion that you should create a place on the web for people to show off what they have done (all those personal outcomes) as if just anyone, any old set of eyeballs, might be interested.

The real value is in the sharing of results with friends, who will be interested because that personal outcome involves a friend - in whom they are personally interested.

Then if they take the results and create their own personalised iteration, they'll have friends they may choose to share with, and so the iterations repeat, amplifying the original.

The outcome relies heavily on three things:
1. A willingness to relinquish control.
2. Toolkits users can play with.
3. Creative users.

Kind of different from mass marketing, huh?

2 and 3 are in place. Are you ready for No1?

Max Levchin of Slide opens the Web 2.0 Expo keynotes

Max Levchin of Slide opens the Web 2.0 Expo keynotes » VentureBeat

Li noted that Slide may become more successful in some ways than its host, Facebook.

“Successful social value builders are the ones that build real value,” he said. “If you wake up in the morning and wonder, will they take it away from me, you probably deserve to have it taken away.”

If you build a connection with the user, and they want to use your application, then the social networks can partner more aggressively on revenue opportunities. So long as the context you create is valuable to the advertiser, then it works, he said.

LiveUniverse acquires Pageflakes

Pageflakes got bought by LiveUniverse. We have Dan Cohen, Pageflakes CEO speaking at WidgetWebExpo and I'm looking forward to hearing what we'll be seeing from them next.

LiveUniverse acquires Pageflakes, creates personalized media pages

In a statement, the companies said initial integration will be with LiveUniverse’s video entertainment network, LiveVideo (www.LiveVideo.com). This will let users remix videos, photos, music, blogs with content from their favorite sites on the Web, the companies said. Pageflakes technology will make it easier for LiveVideo users to personalize the layout of their profiles. Users will get their own “My LiveVideo” personalized page.

Users can then “Pagecast” (share and publish) these pages within their LiveVideo social network or to everyone on the Web.

Start Pages: The Next Social Networks?

This is a widget thing - start pages are, after all, one of the places widgets go to live. So the idea of a socialised start page is not far fetched. But of course, if widgets are social, then they should be social from wherever they live.

Start Pages: The Next Social Networks - ReadWriteWeb

Google today made an announcement that could prove to be not only important to the evolution of OpenSocial and iGoogle, but also to the social networking sector itself. Google announced a new developer sandbox for iGoogle that includes support for their OpenSocial APIs. Essentially, Google is working toward turning their start page property into a social network, though they haven't overtly said so. Google's move makes this officially the start of a trend we're seeing in start pages to get more social, and an idea we've been pushing at RWW for the past year.

Death of the web site: Part III

It's in the widgets - the web site as solid destination is dying widget by widget. Intel pushes it all along a bit with a Mash Maker, though I think we're going to have to invent some new terminology for this soon. Effectively you are creating your won website out of parts on the fly - I think.

Intel Mash Maker: Mash-ups for the masses

Intel wants to make the whole Web editable, just like a single Wikipedia page.
The chip giant on Tuesday will make a beta available of Intel Mash Maker, a free browser extension that allows users to modify Web pages and combine information from different sources. Its first beta works with Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7, though at this point the features are far more mature in Firefox, Intel said.

What's different is that the actual mashing up of information on Intel Mash Maker happens on the client, rather than the server. So instead of making a different Web application to, say, plot real estate listings on Google Maps, Intel Mash Maker lets people add a widget that adds visualization to the real estate listing site.

The idea is that people can create their own customization to Web pages, either by copying existing widgets or customizing widgets to different Web pages. A person who has a widget that displays leg room on Expedia flight results can modify it for another travel site, for example.

Six Apart adds creative and ad network, I think

Six Apart, the blogging tool company who produce Movable Type, TypePad (which is what I've used mostly for years), Vox, and who bought and then sold Livejournal, have announced they are adding creative services and an advertising network. It's not exactly clear what they are doing (and certainly not clear why they are doing this). They seem to have either acquired or poached a team from an existing blog development company, Apperceptive. They don't make this clear.
They are also launching an ad network for high volume bloggers. Crowded market, though I guess they at least have a leg in the space to start with.

This is an interesting direction for one of the oldest blog tools - not the most obvious move to make, but we will see where it leads them.

Six Apart - Blog - At Your Service: The Next Evolution of Six Apart

Six Apart Services offers design, development, implementation and integration services to build blog-powered communities for publishers, companies, and major bloggers. ... The best part is, we're not starting from scratch with our services effort, we're starting with the best.

Six Apart Office LocationsThe core of the Six Apart Services team comes to us from Apperceptive, the renowned New York City experts who've helped build amazing blog-powered communities for sites including The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, BoingBoing, Major League Baseball, iVillage, Gothamist, Serious Eats and many more.

Of course, success isn't just about money. For many bloggers, the goal is traffic or influence or simply a connection to a community. So we're creating a suite of VIP services aimed at helping you achieve your goals, using our tools and expertise. Combined with our new offerings as part of Six Apart Services, it's a dramatic expansion of the professional support offering that's always distinguished Six Apart products.

There's a new premium advertising program that offers more control over the advertising on your blog, and our goal is to help you produce more revenue than the simple ubiquitous text ads that you might otherwise be using. Plus, you don't have to use Six Apart blogging tools to profit from our advertising program. But you may have to be patient -- we're rolling the program out gradually to make sure we take good care of our bloggers and advertisers as we get started.

Update: Six Apart did acquire Apperceptive - "We acquired Apperceptive, and their office is now Six Apart NYC" - Anil

Introducing our Speakers - Marc Canter

Marc Canter, founder of Broadband Mechanics, opera singer and larger than life evangelist for the mesh, is on a roll and he's speaking at WidgetWebExpo. If you want some notion of how widgetized content fits into a larger context, Marc's your man.

The value of open social networks for widgets
Everybody is in favour of open social networks where widgetized content can roam freely from one place to the next - but not everyone agrees on what the definition of open social networks is. This session will take a look at the myths and reality of social networks and ask what can be done now and what do we have to do next to achieve openness - if that is indeed a good idea.

Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » How to build the mesh - #3: Shared Structured Content Servers

OK - now that we’ve shipped a few networks and I’ve written up how one’s ID, Persona and Groups (#1) and persistent ubiquitous content (#2) are important domains in building out the mesh, I’d now like to focus on a domain which has been bubbling up for years and which will also play a key role in the mesh - shared structured content servers (#3). Call it micro-content, micro-formats, tagging, meta-data, semantic web, shared knowledge bases or what have you - the idea is that content comes along with extra ’stuff’ associated with it and that all that content and data is available on public, shared servers - where a community can contribute to it - and it’s overall value goes up.

Marc Canter is the CEO of Broadband Mechanics, purveyors of a white label social networking platform called PeopleAggregator. Marc started a company called MacroMind - which became Macromedia. That means Marc and his team created the world’s first multiple player (now called Flash), the world’s first multimedia authoring system (Director) and the first system where one could create a file once – and play it back on multiple platforms.

That was in the 80’s. Marc created Interactive Music Videos, Interactive TV Talk shows, scalable content and what’s now called Ajax in the 90’s.

PeopleAggregator outputs widgets and personifies all of the standards and principles of open social networking - eg. providing control to end-users to output and control their own user data. Marc will talk about how to “build the mesh” and how open standards and proprietary formats must live side by side. Marc blogs at marc.blogs.it

WidgetWebExpo speakers

David Armano of Logic+Emotion is putting together a panel for WidgetWebExpo. David Armano is VP of Experience Design with Critical Mass, a professional services firm with a sweet spot for creating outstanding experiences.

Micro Interactions: Can portable experiences go mainstream?
Whether we call them widgets, modules, desktop applications or something else, we are increasingly seeing more interactions happen that are distributed, portable and yes—small. From rich interactive banners, to do-it-yourself Web widgets—the internet is more fragmented than ever before. Thanks to search engines, we know that your home page is less relevant than it used to be. And advanced interactions in small places like Apple’s iPhone have shown us that meaningful interactions can happen in small, portable chunks. The question is—will this all go mainstream? Join our panel of experts as we discuss how micro interactions may or may not change our digital behavior.

All confirmed speakers are listed on the WidgetWebExpo site. You can book now for WidgetWebExpo with an early bird discount.

Charity uses widgets to provide accountability to donors

Charity uses widgets to provide accountability to donors

A children's charity is using widget technology -- traditionally used with a single purpose application like updating weather or news on a Web site -- to help it show donors how their money is being used.

Operation Kids, which accepts directed and unrestricted donations from individuals and businesses, was formed in 1999 to assemble a worldwide stable of charities that deal with the most pressing needs of children. The agency reviews the finances, programs and operations of potential charities and gives a seal of approval to those that meet its criteria.

The Operation Kids selection process allows donors to be assured that their money is actually benefiting children, said Rick Larsen, president and co-founder of the Salt Lake City-based organization.

The company is constantly looking for better ways to measure accountability, a policy that became even more important after teaming with Drew Brees, quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, to raise money to aid in Hurricane Katrina relief projects, he said. Because of the well-publicized problems with donations to hurricane relief in the past, the organization wanted to clearly show donors how the money was used.

We've got widgets comin' out our ads

mediaFORGE have launched widget ads with the stunningly excellent slogan:



mediaFORGE Makes Ads into Vehicles for Widgets - MarketingVOX

Rich media ad house mediaFORGE has introduced a product that enables widget distribution through online ad units.

The offering allows advertisers to include widgets in their ads that can be embedded onto blogs or social networking profiles.

Assuming users are willing to upload widgets from banner ads, the life of the message is extended beyond the media buy and disseminated to other sites.

Google Stiffs Nonprofits, Launches Second Rate Widget Builder

Google Stiffs Nonprofits, Launches Second Rate Widget Builder With No Hosting - ReadWriteWeb

The new Google Gadget Builder for Organizations looks like the easiest way there is to build a widget for webpages or a gadget for iGoogle. Intended for nonprofit organizations, the Gadget Builder lets widget authors combine RSS feeds, YouTube video playlists and links to donate or join the email list serve for your organization.

Organizations interested in a more powerful option should check out the even easier to use SproutBuilder. SproutBuilder comes with built-in distribution hooks, unlike this Google Gadget that prompts people to do nothing but add a widget to a Google page. It's pretty absurd.

oEmbed: an embed API

oEmbed

oEmbed oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites. The simple API allows a website to display embedded content (such as photos or videos) when a user posts a link to that resource, without having to parse the resource directly.

Early implementors include Flickr, Viddler, Qik and Pownce

Written by

• Cal Henderson (cal [at] iamcal.com)
• Mike Malone (mike [at] pownce.com)
• Leah Culver (leah [at] pownce.com)
• Richard Crowley (r [at] rcrowley.org)

The Other Dangers Of The Blogger Lifestyle...

Tom Foremski being funny.

The Other Dangers Of The Blogger Lifestyle...

Blogging is stressful, you are always on. Matt Richtel at the New York Times nailed it: In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.

Here are some of the other dangers (tongue-in-cheek) of the rock-and-roll blogger lifestyle

It's All About the Database ... or the Widget

Rajil Kapoor, a VC at Mayfield Fund, he gets it. It's always nice to read someone else writing your thoughts exactly. I've been banging on this theme for two years now, here's my theory in Rajil's words:

It's All About the Database...

The web is evolving fast from a simple web page/website destination model to one of distributed data (which is synonymous with content) and applications that appear wherever the user needs them the most.

This may seem like a simple shift but the effects on the ecosystem are profound and new winners will be created.

Sure, you have to have a destination - but in many cases its becoming a showcase site vs where the real action is.

The extreme examples are widget businesses

Why is this happening? Very simply, because the user is pulling the web in this direction.

A website is really nothing more than data and applications on a page so it makes sense that a publisher puts some structure around these items, makes them discrete, and "atomizes"/redistributes it everywhere.

Get that last line. I've been pointing out for a while that a web site is little more than a bunch of widgets thrown together under the control of the publisher. Blow it all up, throw it to the winds and let the great unwashed public decide where the parts should logically land. Brilliant. But although Mayfield can feel chuffed to have investments in this space, we're only now seeing the start of it. It's such a massive paradigm shift that it will take ten years to play out. Today's winners will probably be burned up in the supernova of distributed content we'll see during that time as we refine our tools and learn to live with a web without our large reference websites.

First speakers for WidgetWebExpo

Really happy to announce a first bunch of speakers for WidgetWebExpo in New York. I'm chasing down my favourite widget themes here, with some great speakers. This stuff is important - things are moving very fast in the widgetsphere - I think these speakers will bring some clarity and some questions to the mix. The conversation continues with more to come over the next few weeks.
You can book now at the WWE site as a discounted early bird.

Show us the money!
One of the key questions at any widget event is where the revenue streams are and whether the widgetsphere is a real business or a passing fad. This session will confront this question head on and give an overview of the many potential and existing revenue streams available to widget owners and developers.
Chris Cunningham: Founder, CEO Appsavvy

The value of open social networks for widgets
Everybody is in favour of open social networks where widgetized content can roam freely from one place to the next - but not everyone agrees on what the definition of open social networks is. This session will take a look at the myths and reality of social networks and ask what can be done now and what do we have to do next to achieve openness - if that is indeed a good idea.
Marc Canter: Founder, CEO Broadbandmechanics

Media Transformative
The power of the network changes the traditional media model through two key disruptions. First it disrupts how, and by whom, content is created. Second it disrupts how, and by whom content is distributed. Together these offer an opportunity for the traditional chasm between advertising and content to close. This session will consider how 'media' companies can reform themselves to change both what they do and the way they go about it to deliver products and services which are a better fit with the inhabitants of the networked world.
David Cushman: Digital Development Director, Bauer Consumer Media

Widgets promoting widgets
Much like web pages, widgets are amenable to quality implementation. Tweaks to user-interface design, installation flow and layout can increase the cross promotion and adoption of your widget. This session will look at how to perfect your widget to make it go further, faster.
Fraser Kelton: Director of Business Development, AdaptiveBlue

Are widget standards an oxymoron?
Do we need widget standards, and if so, who is best positioned to define and deliver them? This session will look at the candidates for standardization and suggest approaches that may help the widget industry sort out some of its intrinsic problems.
This session is presented in co-ordination with the 'Widget Standards Birds of a Feather' meeting that will take place during the conference.
Chad Catacchio: gisplanning

ecommerce in widgets
The dream of online sellers is a widget that can take their shopping interface right into the heart of the social networks. How realistic is this dream and what is available now for sellers who want to widgetize?
Fergus Burns: CEO, Nooked

Widgets as Adverts: how do we go from here to there?
The intense popularity of widgets, gadgets, Facebook applications and their kin has advertisers and publishers eager to get on board. But before you invest in a widgetized advertising campaign, there are a number of strategic and technical factors to consider. There are also important guidelines to follow to ensure you get the most from your investment.
Scott Rafer: Lookery

Towards a long term widget strategy
Most widget campaigns to date have been of the 'build it up, send it out, see if it flies' variety. But what would a long term widget strategy look like, what issues need to be managed if widgets are to become a core part of marketing campaigns - campaigns that can last decades rather than weeks.
Ivan Pope: CEO and founder, Snipperoo

Tracking widgets in the wild
Once a widget is built and released into the world, it becomes a migratory animal, roaming across a variety of social networks, blogs, personal start pages and out onto the desktop and the mobile space. Is it possible to track widgets wherever they go and if so, what exactly are we tracking?
Linda Abraham: Comscore, WidgetMetrix

Exploring the Web and Desktop Widget Dichotomy
There is a chasm between web and desktop widgets from both a technical and marketing perspective.  How is it possible to bridge these distinct widget worlds using cross-platform technologies - with a demo of "iTunes for widgets"
Danny Espinoza: Amnesty Hypercube

Social Meaning In A Fragmented World: Can We Come Together In A Web That's Exploding?
As we move further apart, we come closer together. Can we make sense of the paradox that a fragmenting web means that we are in fact clustering in ever tighter circles? Is it indeed a paradox, or is it an inevitable outcome of our taking control of the web. And how are widgets being used to carry our communications from one cluster to the next?
Stowe Boyd: /Messengers

How we built a widget that can really interact with the users
This session looks at how a company with an online product went about designing, commissioning and building their own widgets. What were the issues, the desires, the problems and the solutions. And did it work?
Chris Thorpe, Michael Birch: MindCandy

SEO with widgets
It is often claimed that widgets could offer a powerful vehicle for link building. But is this true and if so, what are the issues that constructing a campaign around SEO in widgets brings to the surface.
Patrick Sexton: SEOish

Social Aggregators Emerge To Manage Digital Lifestyles

Dion Hinchliffe produces the loveliest graphics in the business. This is not strictly about widgets, but sort of about the widgetsphere. Anyway, we're all swimming in the same soup. I'm a friendfeed user (http://friendfeed.com/ivanpope), but I don't think it's necessarily usable in its current incarnation. And I'd say that if you want to centralise and syndicate your online life - do it with widgets (think iGoogle or Netvibes or Pageflakes).



Social Aggregators Emerge To Manage Digital Lifestyles [Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog]

Tape mix widget

Lawrence from Sexy Widget made a mix tape and embedded it as a widget - lovely. Only thing is - for some reason, the widget itself doesn't seem to allow me to make a copy. Although it uses Gigya, which should make this very simple, I had to go to the Mixwit site to get the embed code:

Sexy Widget: Mixwit Mix Tape Widget

Mixwit Mix Tape Widget I saw Mixwit mentioned on A VC and took it for a whirl. It's a neat little mix tape widget that allows you to search for songs on the Web, and include them in an embeddable mix tape.

Doubleclick partners for widget distribution

Missed this at the time! Way to go, Gigya.

Gigya - Boost Widget Distribution and Get Real Time Tracking

DOUBLECLICK LAUNCHES WIDGET ADVERTISING THROUGH RICH MEDIA

Widget Ads Provide Media and Creative Agencies with Virality, Content Delivery and Consumer Behavior Metrics

New York, March 17, 2007 - DoubleClick Inc, a premier provider of digital marketing technology and services, today announced the support of widget advertising within the core DART for Advertisers (DFA) ad serving platform through the creation of the new Widget Ad rich media format. Widget Ads enable media and creative agencies to integrate a viral component into any campaign to allow consumers to "snag" or "grab" the ad onto their personal homepage or social network page. Widget Ads allow brands to move beyond strictly paid media and help them to build an ongoing interactive and engaging relationship with consumers.

Widget advertising is a growing trend, especially within social networks. According to eMarketer, 22 percent of marketers surveyed used widgets as a social media marketing application last year. They predict that this year, the number of marketers who plan to use widgets will double to 47 percent (Source: December 2007, "Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending and Usage).

"Widgets are part of a fundamental change within the online marketing arena," said Ari Paparo, vice president of advertiser products for DoubleClick. "Widget Ads provide audiences with the ability for self-expression and identification with well-loved brands while providing marketers the benefits of virality and engagement along with the measurability of traditional online channels."

CBS, DoubleClick, expand widget ad options

Big media in little places: CBS, DoubleClick, expand widget ad options

Big media is getting into widget advertising, in order to reach people on sites across the web. One example: Media conglomerate CBS is launching a local widget ad network today, with the goal of drawing more traffic to its own web sites — and making money from partner sites in the process. Another example: DoubleClick, the advertising giant (that Google has just gotten final approval to purchase), has announced its own widget ad network today.

edublogs lets in the widgets

I'll try to find out the reasoning. edublogs has over 100,000 blogs - and they just opened the doors to widgets. Way to go, guys! Now if wordpress.com could just see the light.

Widgets, javascript, iframes and objects (and all that jazz) | Edublogs - education blogs

Widgets, javascript, iframes and objects (and all that jazz)

After lengthy discussions and weighing up of the pros and cons we’ve decided to allow javascript, iframes and object code onto Edublogs.

This means that you can now just copy and paste pretty much most ‘embedding’ code you can pick up around the web directly into your Edublog.

WidgetWebExpo agenda published

I've just put the WidgetWebExpo conference agenda up and it's looking great. Of course, it will probably change a bit over the next few weeks, but the basic ideas are all there. I've tried to cover both practical and theoretical, technical and commercial aspects, with a few wildcards thrown in. My approach is to keep a good number of slots open for as long as possible, because I know great ideas and speakers will suddenly appear from nowhere. That said, I've got a lot of excellent speakers signed up already and will be publishing the first draft in the next few days. If you are one of those excellent speakers, or you have a great idea for a missing session, email speakers@widgetwebexpo.com

I think all my sessions are great - but here are a few that I'm particularly looking forward to. What do you think - comments at the expo site.

WidgetWebExpo

Show us the money!

One of the key questions at any widget event is where the revenue streams are and whether the widgetsphere is a real business or a passing fad. This session will confront this question head on and give an overview of the many potential and existing revenue streams available to widget owners and developers.

Media Transformative

The power of the network changes the traditional media model through two key disruptions. First it disrupts how, and by whom, content is created. Second it disrupts how, and by whom content is distributed. Together these offer an opportunity for the traditional chasm between advertising and content to close. This session will consider how ‘media’ companies can reform themselves to change both what they do and the way they go about it to deliver products and services which are a better fit with the inhabitants of the networked world.

Are widget standards an oxymoron

Do we need widget standards, and if so, who is best positioned to define and deliver them? This session will look at the candidates for standardization and suggest approaches that may help the widget industry sort out some of its intrinsic problems.
This session is presented in co-ordination with the ‘Widget Standards Birds of a Feather‘ meeting that will take place during the conference.

ecommerce in widgets

The dream of online sellers is a widget that can take their shopping interface right into the heart of the social networks. How realistic is this dream and what is available now for sellers who want to widgetize?

Social Meaning In A Fragmented World: Can We Come Together In A Web That’s Exploding?

As we move further apart, we come closer together. Can we make sense of the paradox that a fragmenting web means that we are in fact clustering in ever tighter circles? Is it indeed a paradox, or is it an inevitable outcome of our taking control of the web. And how are widgets being used to carry our communications from one cluster to the next?

Doing SEO with widgets

It is often claimed that widgets could offer a powerful vehicle for link building. But is this true and if so, what are the issues that constructing a campaign around SEO in widgets brings to the surface.

Towards a long term widget strategy

Most widget campaigns to date have been of the ‘build it up, send it out, see if it flies’ variety. But what would a long term widget strategy look like, what issues need to be managed if widgets are to become a core part of marketing campaigns - campaigns that can last decades rather than weeks.
(the last one is me riding my hobby horse!)