The Social

The MySpace Primetime video app.

(Credit: MySpace)

Now you can put a TV on your MySpace profile--sort of.

The News Corp.-owned social network has built a new widget for its developer platform called "Primetime," a video player that syndicates much of the professionally created content available on its MySpaceTV media hub. Included in that roster is video from Hulu (a joint venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal), Warner Bros., Sony, and other MySpace content partners as well as the social network's original video content.

It's also searchable, and provides another outlet for MySpace's video ads. Since it's a developer platform app, it's not embeddable elsewhere, but MySpace is a partner in the OpenSocial project and therefore could probably syndicate the widget outside its own site without too much tweaking.

MySpace is now encouraging users to embed Primetime on their profiles. It's only available to members in the U.S., probably because of licensing issues. But the U.S. is MySpace's biggest market, where 76 million of its 122 million visitors come from.

"The Primetime application highlights how professional video content is being voraciously consumed across the MySpace ecosystem, not just within MySpaceTV," Jason Kirk, vice president of video and entertainment for MySpace, said in a release Wednesday.

Among the digerati, there's already a clear winner in the presidential election: little Web "widgets" that can be dropped onto sites to carry everything from election results to user-chosen news headlines to slideshows of VP candidate Sarah Palin's fashion choices.

In 2004, the buzz about digital media and the election was all about a nascent form of news publishing--blogs. In 2006 it was online video, particularly YouTube, after the video-sharing site hosted a widely circulated amateur video of George Allen, then a Virginia senator up for re-election, using an obscure racial slur at a campaign rally.

In 2008, it's been all about the widgets. A Silicon Valley fad for two years running, they've officially hit a mainstream fever pitch with the campaign cycle. And if there wasn't enough already about this election to make your head spin, these might put you over the top.

The companies and Web developers who make applications for clients like media companies and political campaigns, from widgets to mobile-device downloads, are currently riding high. So are a ton of Web start-ups that let you vote, mash up, aggregate, or what-have-you with news stories and headlines. Media outlets have been decorating their Web sites with the digital equivalent of Christmas tree ornaments: countdown clocks, video players, tickers with headlines sourced from around the Web, and the trendiest of all, the clickable red-and-blue Electoral College projection map.

It's a far cry from 2004, when we were all marveling over "citizen news" at sites such as RedState and DailyKos, and campaigns' use of Meetup to bring supporters together.

With the electoral cycle drawing to a close, we'll soon see whether the endless parade of "election apps" is a lasting digital trend or whether the hype will fade. Widgets and gadgets and mash-ups are largely reliant on technology created by small Silicon Valley companies that could fall from favor as innovation speeds on, go belly-up in the face of a recession, or see their contracts trimmed from the budgets of cash-strapped media companies that have commissioned them.

Right now, though? They're everywhere. You can see election apps in action on TV, with cable network Current aggregating election-related messages from micro-blogging service Twitter along with headlines from social news site Digg. They're on newspapers' Web sites, like sharing start-up SocialMedian's partnership with outlets like the Washington Post and the U.K.'s The Guardian. They're on the iPhone, with downloads ranging from Electoral College maps to poll results to an official Barack Obama campaign app. And they're on social networks; both Facebook and MySpace have partnered with youth-voting organization Rock the Vote to entice more of their young members to register to vote.

The campaigns are in on it, too. Obama's campaign created an internal social network, an application to run on an Apple iPhone; used a text-messaging campaign to announce his choice of Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden as his running mate; and used the platform of a development company, Clearspring, to make a "Tax Cut Calculator" application. (Clearspring says it's had 1.3 million views in fewer than three weeks, half of which have been on MySpace.) Republican rival John McCain has been less proactive on the social-networking and Web app front, but Clearspring said that a third-party "McCain-Palin '08" application has been embedded across the Web 13,000 times.

For the news-hungry masses, in an era when headlines can emerge anywhere at any hour, widgets and mash-ups and Web apps--often described by their manufacturers with adjectives like "real-time" and "dynamic"--are like 24-hour access to popcorn. "People are gravitating, not just individuals, but actually the campaigns--they're seeing widgets as a way to get their message out and get their campaign message in front of people, particularly in the social-media space," said Bill Rubacky, Clearspring's director of marketing.

2008's election-app craze is as much about managing this frenetic news cycle as it is about galvanizing voters. Just check out MySpace's "Decision '08" page, which features nothing less than an NBC political news feed, a Google Gadget for locating polling stations, an MSNBC video player, a link to an interactive Electoral College map, and a poll from Flektor, a widget-maker that MySpace parent company News Corp. acquired last year--in addition to the usual MySpace networking features.

Some Web users might find it to be an efficient one-stop source for interactive political news. Others might scream "media overload." And if you look at fashion, an era of heavy accessorizing (read: the '80s) is often followed by a reactionary period of austerity. Will digital politics' equivalents of gold bangles and neon leg warmers end similarly? That's dependent on one huge factor: results. Should Obama lose the election on Tuesday, his social-apps-heavy campaign tactics may be seen as less effective than most pundits anticipated.

There's also a question of what happens after Tuesday, when the election hype ends and the reality of a likely recession sets in. One not-so-good sign: Silicon Valley venture capitalists are already expressing concern about the app industry's ability to make money.

"(Political news) is certainly something many people are passionate about, and when the election's over its unclear who they will turn to," said Amanda Michel, head of the "Off the Bus" political coverage hub for the Huffington Post, a political news outlet that has seen its traffic soar with the impending election.

In other words, many of the companies that have been responsible for the share-this, embed-that culture of the 2008 election's digital coverage might not be around to do the same thing for the 2010 midterms or the 2012 general election.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the Internet as a whole took a breather," said Mark Ghuneium, founder and CEO of analytics agency Wiredset. "You know what they say about a rising tide raising all boats? It might be true that (the election) is keeping things sustained."

A correction was made at 1:46 p.m. PT: Clearspring was the platform for the Obama campaign's tax calculator widget, but it was not officially commissioned to make it.

JS-Kit, a start-up that has created an array of social-networking apps for sites to install, has raised $3.6 million in venture funding in a Series B round led by Altos Ventures. Existing investor TEF3 also contributed.

With the funding, JS-Kit plans to make more hires beyond its team of 12 engineers as well as broaden its management team--DataPortability Workgroup organizer Chris Saad has joined the company as an advisor. The company also plans to hone its business-development strategy so that it can reach the magic "profitable" milestone sooner rather than later.

"Each of these areas provides key value to all our publisher partners who can rest assured that we have the development team necessary to continue to support the products, the leadership to execute on an exciting road map, and a sustainable business model to ensure the company's success now and into the future," CEO Khris Loux wrote in an e-mail announcement.

JS-Kit's specialty isn't gimmicky widgets, but rather low-cost add-ons for Web sites, like comments and ratings, that could otherwise be built in-house for a higher tab.

Looks like they're battening down the hatches: Social-network apphaus Gigya has raised $11 million in a Series C funding round led by DAG Ventures.

President and co-founder Rooly Eliezerov called it a "pre-emptive round" in a release Wednesday; the company's Series B round was only seven months ago. But Gigya insists that this new funding is to keep up demand, not to have some disaster insurance in the face of the current financial situation.

Still, economic crisis notwithstanding, Gigya and its brethren may still have a tough road ahead: Blogger Nick O'Neill recently found that traffic to a Facebook app he created tanked after the social network instituted a controversial redesign that relegates many third-party widgets to a "Boxes" tab.

Facebook's obviously not the only platform for social widgets, but it's been the poster child for apps ever since the Facebook Platform made its debut in May 2007. Could it be a bellwether for the industry? Absolutely.

Disclosure: CNET is a Gigya partner.

AOL's Platform-A subsidiary is now bringing affiliate marketing to widget ads. If that sounds like a lot of media speak, that's because it is.

To power widget ads, AOL acquired start-up Goowy in February, and it has already worked the acquisition into Platform-A. As part of Tuesday's announcement, Goowy's technology has been officially incorporated into Buy.at, an affiliate network that AOL also acquired earlier this year.

"Once a publisher places a widget on their Web site, consumers can grab it and distribute the widget to other locations on the Web, including social-network pages, desktops, and blogs," a release from AOL explained. "The publisher earns revenue for each sale driven by the widget, even if it's several download generations away from the publisher's site."

AOL has made many significant advertising announcements in recent months as part of its refocus on online media, but it's still having a rough time as a subsidiary of Time Warner.

While AOL's ad revenues were up 2 percent in the second quarter of 2008, it wasn't enough to make up for losses at its once-powerful access service--which Time Warner plans to spin off.

Last month, we reported that The New York Times would be expanding its online-media reach with TimesPeople, a sharing and bookmarking feature on the site.

But that's not all for the Gray Lady's digital makeover, Silicon Alley Insider reported Wednesday. Also on the way is a set of application program interfaces (APIs) to get Times data to third-party sites, a custom widget generator that bloggers can use to embed news on their sites, and an expansion of TimesPeople so that it's on the Web site rather than in the form of a Firefox plug-in.

A look at the NYT's forthcoming widget generator.

(Credit: Silicon Alley Insider)

There's also reportedly more in store for Blogrunner, a Techmeme-like start-up that the Times acquired and has worked into its technology coverage to pull in headlines from around the Web. And the Times will be developing iPhone applications for the new app store that Apple will be unveiling with the new iPhone 3G.

What wasn't revealed was a timeline, for the most part. So these remain projects in the works, and we'll likely see gradual beta launches before they're readily available.

Fighting the common wisdom that it's tough to make money off a social-network application, AOL announced Monday that it will guarantee CPM revenues to developers on Facebook and Bebo's platforms if they opt to use its Platform-A ad technology. If a developer pulls in three unique ad impressions, AOL will pay an undisclosed flat fee.

"Advertiser interest in social networks is rising at a steady rate, and Platform-A is making an unprecedented flat-fee commitment to help application developers generate revenue and guarantee monetization of their applications," Dave Jacobs, Platform-A's senior vice president of publisher services, said in a release. "Platform-A views social-networking applications as an area where we can add significant value by letting developers focus on expanding their install base, without worrying about monetization of applications."

For AOL, it's a way to get a leg up on the dozens of small- and medium-size ad networks, not to mention Google's AdSense, that are catering to social-network platform developers, specifically those building on Facebook. The new guarantee is part of Widgnet, a developer-focused niche of AOL's Advertising.com, where the company says that "widgets are transformed from clever little applications into hard-working revenue generators."

There are so many options for application ads, and so few genuine success stories, that offering guaranteed CPMs to developers may be an effective incentive, at least at first. But the developer community is notoriously tight-knit, and if Platform-A offer doesn't reliably lead to more money from applications, word would spread quickly and developers could jump ship.

Currently, the deal extends only to U.S. visitors to U.S.-based applications on Facebook and Bebo, which AOL purchased this spring and which has an application portability deal with Facebook. The program will ideally be expanded to Europe later this summer, and potentially to other developer platforms in the future.

Netvibes, a company offering services for creating personalized home pages and a platform for widgets, announced on Thursday that founder and Chief Executive Tariq Krim is stepping aside.

Although Chief Operating Officer Freddy Mini will be taking his place as CEO, Krim will remain on the Paris-headquartered company's board of directors. No concrete reason for his departure was provided.

In a release Thursday, Mini called Krim "a true visionary" and touted the fact that nearly 1,000 clients are using the Netvibes widget platform, which went open-source last month. Mini, a former employee of CNET News.com parent company CNET Networks, has been Netvibes' COO since 2006, working on expanding the company's U.S. operations.

Moving forward, Netvibes will likely continue to focus on its widget platform, which has a much sunnier outlook than the personalized home page service. Sites in that niche have had a tough time in the face of competition from Google's iGoogle and Yahoo's My Yahoo, not to mention the fact that personalized home pages just aren't as chic as they were in 2002.

Smaller rival Pageflakes was acquired last month by LiveUniverse, after rumors floated that it needed to find a buyer.

A look at the tabbed interface that Facebook will be rolling out soon as part of its profile redesign.

(Credit: Facebook)

On Wednesday, after months of nothing but ambiguous screenshots, Facebook finally talked about its upcoming site redesign. It'll make it easier for members to see immediate, dynamic updates from their network of friends, a company representative said, and it'll cut down on some of the profile clutter by distributing user information across a set of tabs rather than having it all on one page.

The big question: Will members like it?

"Any user interface changes, large or small, carry with them a certain risk," developer Kyle Bragger told CNET News.com, adding that big decisions can easily create more confusion. "Audience really should always be considered when making user interface decisions."

And considering Facebook has more than 70 million members, many of whom don't consider themselves particularly tech-savvy, a massive overhaul won't go over smoothly with everyone.

One developer who asked to remain anonymous speculated that members might not like the fact that you can no longer view a Facebook profile on a single page. "(It takes away) the user's ability to create a unique profile page that they identify with," he said. "Even your Twitter profile seems to do a better job of representing you these days."

Ultimately, it's hard to tell how the general response will be, especially since no one outside the company has tested the new design yet. Major changes to Facebook have a spotty history: Facebook members freaked out about the News Feed but welcomed the ability to spice up their profiles with developer applications, and while some prominent critics lambasted the Beacon advertising program, members as a whole didn't seem to care.

But none of those situations involved a total redesign that will put some information in different sections of the site and require users to click around in ways the site didn't before. "Completely switching up the profiles on people will be like upgrading Windows (from XP) to Vista," said Nick O'Neill, the blogger behind All Facebook. "I think Vista looks cool but I have no idea how to use any of the tools, (so) I stayed with XP." The problem is that Facebook members won't have a choice: everyone's getting the new design, like it or not.

Then there are the thousands of developers who have created applications for Facebook's platform and who will have a chance to test out the new design several weeks before the greater membership. Although the code for application creation isn't changing, the way that Facebook users interact with apps certainly will: posting to feeds and "walls" is different, and some applications will have their own browser tabs whereas others will be an additional click away. Some developers have already voiced concerns that Facebook's platform is dominated by "corporate" apps and that it's hard for an indie creation to catch on. With applications on separate tabs, it's inevitable that some will say this worsens the situation.

"Not all of the details have been announced for what changes need to be made. What is clear is that applications are going to need to readjust how their content is displayed." O'Neill said. It's true: a lot of information was left unsaid, including how it might tie into the extension of Facebook's API into Friend Connect. He estimated that some developers likely are "going to be forced to make substantial changes to their applications."

At the same time, some developers say they appreciate the fact that Facebook will now be able to convey more immediate information into "news feeds" that are more advanced, and are looking forward to an expanded profile environment that isn't crammed into a single page.

"Much, much better. More dynamic. More room for breathing," a developer who asked to remain anonymous told CNET News.com regarding the new design. "The older design was very constricted."