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Intel to build Yahoo widgets into TV chips

Yahoo is working with microchip maker Intel to create Web computer channels that run alongside TV shows.

The deal will see new TVs incorporating a ‘Widget Channel’, which gives viewers on-screen internet applications that complement TV shows.

Widgets will appear in the corner of a TV screen and work something like a picture-in-picture window of advanced TV sets.

These small windows let viewers chat with or e-mail friends, watch videos, track stocks or sports teams or keep up with news headlines or weather by using a TV remote control.

Widget makers get a makeover | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com

Uh-oh, don't mention the widget
Widget makers get a makeover

Still, social app companies are shifting strategies.

One thing that's quietly changing is the lingo. Turns out the word "widget" just doesn't cut it when you're trying to sell advertising to a big-name marketer or agency. It's also hard to convince venture capitalists hung over from the hype of widgets to invest, so application/widget developers are seeking to recast themselves as bigger players.

That means some companies are stepping away from the word "widget" altogether because it can imply a fleeting, lightweight commodity. Slide, for example, in recent months changed the language on its Web site and stopped trying to explain to advertisers what a widget is, according to the company's director of communications. It now describes the company as a maker of "social entertainment applications."

Snap.com, which is backed by Idealab and the Mayfield Fund, makes what some people might call widgets, which people can customize with photos or video for their blog. Tom McGovern, CEO of the company, calls Snap a maker of "personal media applications" and would prefer to say that it offers a Web service. He said that roughly 2 million publishers have installed its application on more than 10 million Web sites.

"For the non-Web-savvy, a widget company invokes negative images of a commodity product," McGovern said.

Facebook Frenzy Fades

Image via Wikipedia

Facebook Apps: The Valley's Facebook frenzy fades.

They can't say they didn't have it coming. But widgetmakers are angry all the same about Facebook's decision to clone Slide's Top Friends application as a feature in its latest redesign. "It would be insane for a new developer" to begin creating new apps the platform now, says an executive at one of the many Facebook-applications firms watching the story. The exec says the VCs widget startups pitch for funding know it, too, and are closing their wallets. He blames Facebook's "new regime,"

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9 widget myths debunked

Leah Messinger writes an excellent article debunking widget myths - go read the whole thing:

9 widget myths debunked - iMediaConnection.com.

Ever since Facebook launched its f8 platform for application developers in May 2007, the tech industry has agreed that widgets are big business. Trouble is, for a long time venture capitalists and entrepreneurs couldn't seem to agree on what the business actually was.

First, there's the tricky job of defining a widget. Some use the term to describe bits of code that can be copied and pasted into a social network profile page or blog; others use it to refer to all embeddable Flash-based tools, and still others refer to widgets as entire applications built around site-specific application programming interfaces (API).

Regardless of your preferred definition, VCs were initially hesitant to invest in developers of widgets, reasoning that the growth of widget companies could only be secondary compared to the growth of the third-party sites on which their tools were hosted. At the same time, entrepreneurs were cranking out thousands of wacky new programs by the day in the hope that something -- anything -- might stick with consumers.

As the industry has grown over the past year, both investors and developers have gained a better grasp of what to do with widgets. But many misconceptions still remain, preventing marketers from taking full advantage of these tools. Let's take a look, and separate the fact from fiction.

How to degrade a widget (dis)gracefully

I put the BBC Glastonbury festival widget in my iGoogle page the other day. I like trying these things out, and this widget carried the festival webcam streams. It was quite a nice widget.
I just noticed a Twitter that the webcam's were down, so I thought I'd go and check how the widget looked with no content. (This is how it looks in total):

Hmm, well that's graceful, isn't it? I just can't imagine how taking a content stream out of a widget can cause such catastrophic degredation. It's a bit of an insult to anyone who'd bothered to take a copy of the widget.

The limits of widgets

Brands Create Customers � Blog Archive � How to cut the mustard—in brands.

The limits of widgets

Kara’s point—and it’s one well taken—is that most of the “interactive” features of “social advertising” have yet to demonstrate any real and unique value to mainstream manufacturers. They’re still, in Kara’s words, “much more gimmicky and lightweight than innovative and deep.” (I’d venture that most users feel the same way.)

In their present incarnations, most widgets inhabit a no-mans-land between quick code, basic utility and cheesy ads. The best ones are useful, but struggle to extend that use-value into anything approaching an engagement or relationship.
From widgets to “personal brand applications”

I see the current crop of widgets as mostly dead ends in terms of building brand value. They’re a species that has no long-term future. However, they do foreshadow something bigger and better, which I call personal brand applications. It is at the application level that companies, brands and customers can forge new relationships that are indeed innovative, and deep.

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Media Transformative

David Cushman has put his WidgetWebExpo presentation up on slideshare.

| View | Upload your own

Widget Funding Gravy Train Picks Up Speed

All Aboard: Widget Funding Gravy Train Picks Up Speed

Mpire Corporation, parent company of the WidgetBucks ad network, has snagged $10 million in a Series B investment round led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. In all, VC firms have pumped nearly $70 million into widget development companies since mid-May, including the $35 million RockYou picked up from DCM this week, widget analytics firm Clearspring's $18 million funding announcement, and widget-maker Sprout's $5 million pick up.

Matt Hulett, CEO of the less-than-year-old WidgetBucks, said that the company's growth into an ad network that snags 100 million unique monthly visitors across some 20,000 publishers is what attracted the latest investment. The growth serves as concrete proof that the WidgetBucks monetization model--which includes a tech platform that dynamically changes the kinds of ads served based on real-time performance--is viable, sustainable, and most importantly, easy for advertisers to buy into.

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KickApps and Clearspring to partner

Image via Wikipedia

Coming To A Social Network Near You: Self-Service Widgets

White-label widget maker KickApps today is expected to announce a distribution deal with widget syndicator Clearspring Technologies. As such, Clearspring has agreed to promote KickApps' new WYSIWYG Widget Studio, a self-service widget-authoring environment, to the Clearspring user base.

The new partnership will enable Clearspring customers to more easily build their own rich-media and interactive widgets, while KickApps will use Clearspring's distribution and tracking services to provide one-click distribution and analytics to KickApps Platform users.

"We're reducing the barriers to entry for publishers and Madison Ave. to begin monetizing widgets using WidgeADs," said Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps. "Our partnership with Clearspring brings together the core pieces that will define this new market opportunity."

Web App And Widget Engine Zembly Launches

Web App And Widget Engine Zembly Launches.

This week marked the arrival of another market entry in the form of Zembly, a self-described host and creation engine of social applications that is said to facilitate the construction of apps for use on a number of platforms and devices, including Facebook, OpenSocial, Meebo, Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Gadgets engine, and widgets that may be more broadly embedded.

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