• by Gavin O'Malley , June 14, 2007

More than 81 million consumers in North America--or a full 40.3%--were exposed in April to an emerging viable advertising channel, Web widgets, according to a new widget tracking service just launched by comScore.

For now, the Widget Metrix service is only tracking widgets--mainly photo- and video-streaming players--that can be embedded on Web pages like blogs and social networking pages, rather than desktop widgets. (Notably, YouTube's video players are not being tracked by comScore.)

Still, over 177 million consumers were exposed to widgets worldwide in April, or 21% of all worldwide consumers online--a trend being driven by the current flood of user generated content, according to Linda Boland Abraham, executive vice president at comScore.

"The recent explosion of user-generated content has helped create a worldwide marketplace for widgets," said Abraham.

At the moment, consumers prefer widgets for sharing photos with friends and family, comScore's Widget Metrix finds.

In April, photo-sharing widget maker Slide was the top widget provider with a worldwide reach of more than 117 million unique viewers, or 13.8% of the total worldwide Internet audience.

Other top photo-related widgets included RockYou with 82 million viewers, and PictureTrail with 31 million viewers. Also in the mix with 28 million viewers was Photobucket, which was recently acquired by Fox Interactive Media.

Of note, the popular social networking site Facebook recently opened its doors to third-party widget developers, which is expected to further boost their value.

While business models are still an afterthought for some widget makers, many are looking toward bright futures as ad networks--a goal the new third-party user-measurement will help facilitate.

"Third-party audience measurement is critical to the emerging widget economy," said Hooman Radfar, founder of Clearspring, a widget maker that just struck a deal with NBC Universal to carry the network's content throughout the Web.

Added Kevin Freedman, chief financial officer at Slide: "Measurement is really going to shine a light on our young and attractive audience for advertisers."

Top Web Widgets Worldwide April 2007 Source: comScore Widget Metrix
Widget	Unique Viewers (000)	Percent of Worldwide Online Audience
All Widgets	177,777	21.0%
Slide	117,072	13.8%
RockYou	82,045	9.7%
PictureTrail	30,647	3.6%
Photobucket	28,189	3.3%
BunnyHeroLabs	24,984	3.0%
BlingyBlob	21,614	2.6%
Poqbum	18,697	2.2%
Brightcove	16,866	2.0%
Layoutstar	15,348	1.8%
Musicplaylist.us	15,089	1.8%

Web Widget Internet Audience Penetration by Worldwide Region April 2007 Source: comScore Widget Metrix
Region	Unique Viewers (000)	Widget Penetration* by Region
Worldwide	177,777	21.0%
North America	81,011	40.3%
Western Europe	43,792	24.3%
Asia Pacific	33,514	10.9%
Latin America	10,074	17.5%
Middle East-Africa	4,805	12.6%
Eastern Europe	4,581	7.6%

* Penetration = Number of unique widget viewers /number of total Internet users for that region