• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, June 14, 2007

Widgets are in the news this week. Not only did comScore release audience measurement numbers for widgets yesterday -- which showed that many tens of millions of U.S. browsers each month view pages where widget content has been embedded -- but there were also major stories in both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times on widgets and their explosive growth.

What is a widget? Here is Wikipedia's definition: "A web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based Web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. They are akin to plugins or extensions in desktop applications. Other terms used to describe a Web widget include gadget, badge, module, capsule, snippet, mini and flake. Web widgets often but not always use Adobe Flash or JavaScript programming languages."

Why should you care about widgets? Simply put, widgets are the most recent embodiment of highly distributable Web media. Widgets permit users to separate the content from the Web page, permitting users to implant them on all types of pages, from personalized portal home pages to blogs to personal pages on social sites like MySpace or Facebook. I believe that over the next three years, widgets will change online advertising as we know it today.

Why am I so bullish on widget advertising? Here's why:

• Personal media. Widgets are all about people -- content creators, content modifiers, content critics, critics of content critics, content distributors, content trackers, content viewers, and content engagers. Widgets are to media what Transformers were to children's toys. Widgets puts content -- and ultimately advertising -- in the control of people that use them.

• Lots of "widgetable" content. Widgets are just ways to display or distribute digital content. We have a massive World Wide Web of digital content. There is no shortage of content out there for everyone and anyone -- from professional publishers to content creators to archivists to users -- to put into widgets.

• Lots of distributors and lots of places to distribute. Everyone is getting into the distribution of widgets. The television companies, from NBC/U and Fox to CBS, are doing it. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL are doing it. Almost 2 million folks have downloaded WeatherBug's various widgets and gadgets, including those built for Vista, Google, Yahoo and Apple. Widget enablers like Brightcove are doing it. MySpace and Facebook are doing it, and so are millions and millions of their users. Millions and millions of blog writers are doing it. The Web is already awash with widgets, and they're all just getting started.

• Desktops are valuable pieces of marketing real estate.On the desktop your brand is constantly displayed, whether it's a permanent home for your logo in the system tray, the toolbar, the start menu, etc. For every minute customers are using their computers, they're viewing your brand in some fashion. And as Eluma's Joe Lichtenberg noted, "a desktop community provides you with a constant connection through which you can stream relevant information, messages, alerts, and offers."

   

• Sight, sound and motion. Most of the widgets out there today are Flash-based, which means that they can carry video. Video means sight, sound and motion, which is music to the ears of advertisers. Mix that with lots of highly attractive consumers who are deeply engaged in viewing, distributing, modifying and interacting with widgets, and you have a recipe for a robust ad-supported media platform.

 

• Highly measurable. Where consumers go, advertisers follow with their money, if they can track and measure it. Of critical importance here is that widgets and user interactions with them are highly trackable and measurable.

 

• Portable to mobile. Finally. While widgets are just starting to explode on the Web, lots of folks are already porting widgets for mobile usage, and Apple's iPhone introduction certainly won't slow that down.

Are widgets the next search? I don't think so. However, I do think that the concept of highly portable, object-oriented content that is personally and virally distributed will redefine how we think about Web pages, and how advertisers think about using the Web to communicate and interact with consumers. What do you think?