Category: widgets

Widgets Hold the Key to Social Network Success

USA Today illustrates how widgets are catapulting some small companies into success: “For nearly a decade, GarageBand.com was the quintessential struggling Web company, barely hanging on as it burned through $17 million. Until widgets.” “Since it developed a widget, one of the mini-Web applications now flourishing on Facebook and other social-networking sites, the company —… Continue reading Widgets Hold the Key to Social Network Success

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Condé Nast Looks for Online Audience Before Revenue

CondéNet is expanding their efforts into social networks, via widgets: “The Web arm of magazine giant Condé Nast has been one of the more aggressive publishers in embracing Facebook’s open-door policy for outside developers and is among the first to incorporate ads into a handful of viral applications on the hot social-networking site.” “…bringing brands… Continue reading Condé Nast Looks for Online Audience Before Revenue

Waiting to Profit from the Facebook Bandwagon

Interest in Facebook is growing, as many smaller businesses are attempting to create profitable businesses on the platform: “Facebook, based in Palo Alto, Calif., opened its service to outside developers this spring, inviting them to create tools for the site and to try to profit from them. Since then, more than 4,000 “applications” have flooded… Continue reading Waiting to Profit from the Facebook Bandwagon

The Widget Opportunity

BusinessWeek looks at the incredible growth and reach of widgets. An interesting Marc Andreessen quote in the article: “I think the Internet is going through a major, major shift. Concepts are now able to spread on a million Web sites. It’s super exciting because you can get huge scale very quickly. The big widgets have… Continue reading The Widget Opportunity

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Reasons to Love Widgets, Reasons to Hate Widgets

Read/Write Web provides a superb overview of what widgets are, and how they are used. Their conclusion: “…widgets add a lot of functionality to your site. Functionality that you can pick and choose as you wish. They also add potential revenue streams for you…” Fred Wilson reviews the difficulty in attaining reliable metrics on widgets.

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Are Widgets Traffic Magnets?

Read/Write Web reports on a recent talk on widgets. “Some remarkable CPMs are being driven now by widgets… widgets have the potential to get a lot more traffic than your web site…” Fred Wilson has four rules for his approach to creating and monetizing widgets: Microchunk it – Reduce the content to its simplest form.… Continue reading Are Widgets Traffic Magnets?

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Connecting the Islands of Information

Read/Write Web looks at the coming transformation of the web as bits of individualized pieces of information, to a the web becoming a system of “web services that integrate this information in more useful ways. “Some web sites will follow the example of Amazon, del.icio.us and Flickr and will offer their information via a REST… Continue reading Connecting the Islands of Information

Write Once, Publish Anywhere and Everywhere

Fred Wilson has some interesting thoughts on how feeds and widgets play into the online publishing model: “One of the biggest changes out there is the world of distributed media. Feeds, widgets, embed codes, apis, and other tools that allow the publisher to make their content available on other pages. You have to do this,… Continue reading Write Once, Publish Anywhere and Everywhere