Well, the NYTimes finally ran an article on Widgets, so it's safe to say they're hitting mainstream. Commentary is also popping up on the blogosphere, in posts like Viget's recent Four Labs blog post, which makes a good point that Widgets were popular with early adopters in 2006, with the implicit question of whether they'll be able to cross over to wider audiences. I think the answer is yes, and I don't think we've seen a fraction of their potential.

Why Widgetize?

The power of Widgets is their simplicity: copy and paste some code into your blog or MySpace page and a small application is added to the page. They use Flash or Ajax to draw their power from remote servers, so a weather site can create a little real-time forecaster icon that you can add to your site. Increasing sophistication is broadening their appeal: blogging services are providing user-friendly GUIs for adding Widgets with a single click, bypassing the ugly code view altogether (WidgetBox has actually widgetized Widgets via a generic Widget container).

The Widget concept is already popular across many sites: all of those YouTube videos on MySpace are Widgets, and Google's AdSense program is installed on sites via Widgets. Both implementations led to huge business success. The Mac OS allows users to add Widgets directly to their desktop (the technical details are different, but the concept is the same), and sites like PageFlakes and the Google homepage are providing similar functionality through the Web, which is arguably the operating system of the future.

Widgets are interesting for two reasons:

1. We can expect an increasing number of people to add Widgets to websites throughout 2007
2. We're still figuring out what's possible with Widgets

Finding Widgets

"Where does he get all of those wonderful toys?"
Joker

One of the obvious business models for Widgets is the creation of Widget aggregator sites, or "marketplaces", where users can browse, rate, and comment on Widgets. Some of the more popular Widget catalogs include WidgetBox, Spring Widgets, Good Widgets.

Last week, I was thinking a fun business model would be a simple Web-based Widget builder. Just enter an RSS URL, choose a layout, and grab the code. A more sophisticated model would accept any XML feed of data, then provide a visual tool for matching the data's component parts to the Widget's layout elements.

Turns out MuseStorm beat me to the punch. And maybe ClearSpring too.

Update: It looks like Apple has also released a generic tool for building Mac desktop Widgets.

Monetizing Widgets

You found it where?

One of the promises of the Internet is universal access. As applications migrate onto the Web, that promise is increasingly real. There's no need to install the AIM client when every site provides chat through the WebM. Widgets continue this process of decentralizing content and services.

The content side of this consideration will continue to grab press attention, becaues it rocks current ad models (and dollars) off their old fashioned medium-specific shelf. In 2006, users still had to find the pages they were looking for. Google is king because most "stuff" only lives in one place on the Internet . With Widgets, the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), a core concept of the Internet, may become an antiquated phrase for the average user.

An obvious Widget function that we evangelize at KickApps is content syndication. Sports fans should be able to add their favorite team or player's stats to their site - the online equivalent of wearing a jersey, and less abrasive. This activity is valuable as both an endorsement and a link back to the parent website. It's also good for the small guy, because it will allow contextual portals to target niche audiences without worrying about missing out on more general content

With Widget-based syndication, Content providers can focus increasingly on audiences: the message instead of the medium. Advertising will have to be embedded into content (and therefore truly relevant), rather than exist as a distracting "me too". We're already seeing this content-versus-messenger battle played out over at MySpace. Just today, fears arose as MySpace, arguably the world's biggest host of Widgetized services and content, blocked Widgets for a few hours (more info at Mashable). My, how the remora panic when the shark bites back!

Widgets are also a great advertising platform: why pay to place banner ads when there are legion volunteers waiting to add your content and links to their sites? And once that Widget is placed on someone's site, there's no reason a Widget host couldn't display ads in the space as well - Widgets potentially increase sites' ad inventory beyond their own pages, and at a far lower cost.

Widgets: they're so meta

From a product perspective, Widgets-as-services is already a viable business solution:

• Display AdSense on any site.
• Show Amazon books or eBay listings related to a blogger's content.
• Tell your readers what you want for Christmas, then charge a commission when they click through to the shopping experience. (Hey Nabbr, why not build the shopping cart right into the Widget?)

But this future gets a lot more interesting (it's certainly more interesting for startups), because it opens the door for deploying an application that lives in many locations simultaneously, but maintains a central awareness. As more users get online and create blogs and profile pages, the Web is becoming increasingly fractured. Instead of sharing a dialog on a central message board or email newsgroup, incredibly intelligent people like me are hammering away at personal blogs, waiting to be discovered by the unwashed masses. How does this discovery happen today? The typical reader's experience begins with a generic search at a central site (like Google) and ends on my personal blog, a remote cul de sac in the Internet, subject to it's own rules and customs. This user flow is a disruptive, difficult, and potentially frustrating experience.

While reading John Batelle's proposed solutions to bloggers' isolation and blog audiences' perpetual learning curves, I realized what the people at MyBlogLog already know: Widgets can solve this problem. Because they can live on any site and link back to a central computer, Widgets become the hyper-contextual cookies, linking experiences across the Internet. Widgets can tell a reader about other blogs that might interest them, or other people that also enjoy that blog. I use a Del.icio.us Widget to tell people how my entries are tagged, so they can find similar stuff out there. Once a user understands how the Del.icio.us Widget functions, they can anticipate the functionality when they see the same Widget on other blogs: functionality becomes standardized and decentralized. One day, I'd like to be able to add a MyBlogLog Widget to my Google homepage so I can see who responded to my comments on other peoples' blogs.

Widgets will become the connective tissue of the Internet. Google seems to have a head start on this, with AdSense and Urchin code appearing on more sites daily. What could they accomplish by linking user information together and using it to power content and application displays inside AdSense displays or on users' Google homepages? Widgetize Batelle's "welcome mat" concept into a snippet that anyone could place on their site, providing a welcome message, metadata, and useful links to first time users, but make it user-based instead of context-based. If I register with WelcomeMatr, I can tell them what I want to see on newly-discovered blogs, and they can include content and tools related to my past browsing experiences.

Widgets are a potentially game-changing concept. This is a largely unexplored space, but as Widgets become increasingly popular in 2007, I think we can expect to see more startups like MyBlogLog taking advantage of their power to do more than add a joke of the day to your site.

If Widgets are so hot, why don't you marry one?

Because Timothy Post already did. And this guy is next in line. Check out their blogs for more (and more insightful) thoughts about the coming Widgolution. Widgil War? Widgessance? Widgimilation? It'll come to me. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing how intelligent people use the decoupling of state/URL from content/service to facilitate new concepts.