Webware

So far, the company has 135,000 embeddable objects and 64 million monthly consumers of its widgets, which live on blogs, social-networking sites, and other Web destinations. The most popular widgets are "The Fun Classic Super Mario Game In Flash," BabyTicker: The Baby Countdown Pregnancy Ticker," "Cyber-pet," "Bubbles," and "Idiot Test."

While Widgetbox claims 462 million widget views in a month across 500,000 discrete domains, the big numbers don't add up to a big business. The majority of Widgetbox views are happening on blogs, which led Widgetbox CEO Will Price to become more than a widget supplier.

This week, the company launched the Widgetbox Blog Network, which catalogs widgets in 29 verticals, such as Autos, Music, Sports and Politics. "It's a natural step in the process for us to move away from a pure technology story about widgets," Price said.

The Widgetbox network, which is starting with close to zero unique users per month, will primarily appeal to the long tail of bloggers who lack distribution. Participants include the network channel widget on their blog pages, and Widgetbox applies algorithms to determine which content gets pushed up to the top of the network categories. It publishes leaderboards listing the top contributors.

Widgetbox is launching an ad network, categorizing widgets into 29 content verticals.

"To date, widgets don't have the concept of a network effect. The more people who use them, the more utility is created for individual users. Given bloggers are one of our largest user sources, taking a blidget (RSS feeds turned into a widget) from a single source, and sharing it with the community, and showcasing it in the channel, and having leaderboard benefits bloggers, online content publishers, and advertisers," he added. "The new channels extend reach, drive traffic, improve brand awareness for bloggers."

The Widgetbox network also gives the company an improved business model. Currently, the majority of revenue comes from custom advertising campaigns for companies such as Intel, Wal-Mart Stores, and Apple. But the vast majority of Widgetbox inventory cannot be monetized, Price said.

The company is developing an ad network to take advantage of the categorization into verticals.

"We have 462 million widget views a month, but advertisers are not getting it. We want to target demographics and have a user story--64 million unique users broken into 29 vertical channels, each with 15 to 300 authors," Price explained. "We have to (determine a) domain, categorize them into channels, and understand ad treatments such as drop downs, pop-overs, peel-backs, and rotations, in a way that satisfies users, publishers, and advertisers. It's still early. There are no standard ad units or blueprints to follow, but we are trying to figure it out. The goal for the rest of the year is to answer questions and go into next year with some case studies."

One of Apple's biggest blunders in creating its own directory of iPhone Web apps was to make the site suited for desktop users instead of people on the portable handset.

While the company has since made it easy for people to bookmark Web apps onto their home screens by adding a quick link from inside of Safari Mobile, the "official" directory of Web apps continues to be unapproachable for iPhone users unless they're on a speedy Wi-Fi connection. Widget directory Widgetbox has come up with its own solution and launched a directory of iPhone-friendly widgets that can be installed on the home screen as mini widgetized Web apps.

The directory interface is completely iPhone-friendly, and to go alongside it there's a simple how-to guide to turning bits of Web content into widgets that can be added to the directory just by tagging your work with "iPhone." Users without any sort of Web development experience will be able to make their own iPhone widget apps using Widgetbox's widget-building wizard, which I'm assuming will get iPhone-centric size presets.

The one thing I found underwhelming with most of the example iPhone widgets is that they look just like they do in the directory instead of taking up the entire screen. They also come with Widgetbox branding and links back to the directory--two things which are bound to take crucial seconds to load while on an EDGE connection. However, it's still a lot better than having to load the entire Web page, which in the case of BART's QuickPlanner tool (which serves up travel times for local Bay Area trains) means a nearly three-fold load time decrease from loading BART's home page.

You can navigate to iPhone.Widgetbox.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch to go to the directory. You can also check out the developer specs to make iPhone/iPod touch-friendly Widgetbox widgets here.

The new iPhone widgets directory (left) gives you a listing of tiny Web apps to run on your iPhone. When it comes time to 'install' them, you simply add them as a bookmark on your iPhone's home screen.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Just over a month after releasing Widgetbox's App Accelerator, a shortcut for turning blogs and other Widgetbox widgets into Facebook apps (review), Widgetbox announced an upgrade that enmeshes its apps more completely into Facebook profiles.

According to Widgetbox, creating a functional Flash widget that lives in and operates from the user's profile page was the top developer request. It was mine, too. I wrote that:

"Most Facebook applications launch in a separate window when you click them, taking interaction off the user's profile page (the Facebook-developed Wall is a notable exception). It is therefore tragironic that my Webware blog, whose sole purpose is to make reading headlines instantaneous, never graces my Facebook profile page, and instead is stationed one click in."

Now, however, users have the option of creating new Widgetbox widget-apps in Flash, which means that they'll fully integrate into the profile rather than run in JavaScript on a rerouted page.

To sweeten the deal, Widgetbox has also dangled the golden carrot of customization. Users can now access two areas in the Facebook app-creator to finesse the app's appearance and to craft the profile's story feed and the invitation for friends to join. These dubiously named "viral settings" offer more control over the app's tone, but require a little bit of actual code development, unlike the previous App Accelerator process that required only copying and pasting links. To lighten the burden, Widgetbox lists the syntax and a menu of values for you to emulate when customizing your news feed. Tailoring the feed and invitations' look and feel brings the experience much closer to that of an organic Facebook developer.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Widgetbox today announced App Accelerator, a step-by-step guide and tool for creating Facebook applications from Widgetbox widgets. The blandly named App Accelerator shrewdly connects the community developers of Widgetbox's widget marketplace with Facebook's burgeoning user community. Talk about viral marketing.

The conversion works by adapting Widgetbox's Flash and HTML/JavaScript code for Facebook compatibility. There's a lot of link-swapping involved, and much of App Accelerator's ease-of-use can be attributed to Widgetbox's assumption of several routing URLs.

The checklist guides you through Facebook application creation.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Widgetbox has done its usability homework in creating a friendly, check-listed step-by-step guide that walks users through what might otherwise be a confusing process. Still, I ran into some problems using App Accelerator, including some URL pasting mistakes that rendered my new application useless and significantly delayed this review. This is something I hope Widgetbox and Facebook will both limit in the future with appropriate error sensing and alerts.

Since the proprietary service only converts Widgetbox widgets, I needed to begin by registering and building a widget. I used Widgetbox's Blidget tool (read Webware review) to create a widget of "my" blog (I used Webware.com, of course.)

Next I needed to register as a Facebook developer; easily done through Widgetbox's prominent link. After converting the blog into a widget, I was offered the opportunity to "promote" it on Facebook. Don't be fooled; this isn't App Accelerator's work. Rather, it crashed my Firefox browser, then posted an image of my blidget to my Facebook mini feed, as a video.... Read more

Interestingly enough, those My iTunes widgets that popped up last week have a new distribution partner in the form of Widgetbox. While the widgets you'll find at Widgetbox's site are the identical to the standalone Apple widget builder you get sent to via the iTunes music store, Widgetbox also has their own widget called MixIt that will let you share your iTunes iMix on blogs and Web sites.

If you're unfamiliar with the iMix feature, it lets you publish any regular iTunes playlist to the iTunes music store for others to view, rate, and (hopefully) purchase. A neat idea in theory, but if your music's ID3 tags aren't up to scratch, or the store doesn't have a track, it will simply skip the song entirely. This new widget will take the album art from the songs that have made the jump to your iMix, and give people a simple way to browse through your tracks by album.

The real downer about these new iTunes widgets is that they don't play song previews on their own. Your potential viewers need to have the latest version of iTunes installed just to hear a 30-second preview clip. In comparison, many of the solutions featured in our "Eight (and a half) free Web music players" guide offer full streaming versions of the songs at no cost, and without the need for software.

Widgetbox's MixIt lets you turn your iTunes iMixes into standalone widgets to put on blogs, Web sites, and social networking profiles.

(Credit: Widgetbox.com)

There are a lot of widgets out there. So many, in fact, that sorting through them can be absolutely daunting. Joining the fray of sites that attempt to solve this problem is Widgipedia, a site that catalogs and hosts widgets, both Web-based and downloads. We've covered competitor Widgetbox several times, and the two sites are quite similar. Where Widgipedia differs is in mixing up widgets that run on different platforms: those that run right in your browser and ones you download for various engines such as Mac OS X's Dashboard and Yahoo Widgets. The result is a diverse listing that's fun to explore and play around with.

To sort through all the entries, Widgipedia employs tags instead of categories. This ends up working out pretty well for searching, as long as widgets have been tagged correctly. I still prefer Widgetbox's organization structure with its tags and nine comprehensive categories, which is a little more user friendly. As the site grows, there definitely needs to be some categorization.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

For budding widget designers, there's a dedicated section of widget-creation resources complete with step-by-step how-tos and links to helpful walk-throughs. All the information is relegated to the forums, but there's plenty in there to get a newbie going.

Widgipedia is a great place to browse for new widgets. The site is fairly young, but it already has a pretty diverse collection of neat widgets. If you're a widget developer looking to keep track of what's happening to your widgets, you're likely better off using Widgetbox for its metrics service. If you're just looking to spice up your social-networking profile or desktop widget collection, Widgipedia is definitely worth bookmarking.

Widgetbox has rolled out a new and fun widget-creation tool for blog readers and creators to make their own widgets called Blidgets. A typical Blidget pulls the latest stories or posts from your blog and presents it in a small, customizable widget. All it needs from you is a URL or an RSS feed, and the Blidget maker takes care of the rest. You can even set the Blidget to show pictures and text from a blog's posts. It's all very simple and easy to set up.

When you're done with your Blidget, you can publish it and use Widgetbox's metrics (which we covered in December) to see how and where your Widget is being used, with easy-to-understand statistics. You can also embed it anywhere on your Web site or your blog.

For power users, there are some things left to be desired with the Blidget maker. Images are a bit on the large side, which takes away from the otherwise clean interface. Also, your chosen logo image can't be moved, which is a shame because it would look slick if you could seat it next to the title text. There are also only two sizes to choose from, narrow and square. I would have liked to see a short and wide version also. If you want to change things like that and have some technical savvy, you can always use a widget-creation tool such as Apple's Dashcode or use your favorite text editor (Yahoo Widgets has a good guide here).

You can check out the Webware Blidget here.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Today Widgetbox launched its new syndication metrics service for widget developers. Fancy name aside, this service lets users keep track of how many visitors are using the Widgetbox widgets on their MySpace profile, their Web site, or any other online location. Once you've registered your widgets, you can easily monitor their usage with a simple dashboard that offers data visualization such as graphs and charts. It's a cool tool for individuals to track basic traffic, but it holds more potential for attracting advertisers' attention to the potential for money-making widgets.

Widgetbox has had their syndication metrics service charting data for a long time, and today is simply the rollout of the tools to make use of that data. In fact, if you've been using Widgetbox since its inception, you'll be able to keep track of data going back to August 2006.

Hopefully your graphs will be going the other way.

(Credit: www.Widgetbox.com)

We covered Widgetbox back in August, and since then it's been pretty active, rolling out new features to its casual development platform and Web site. Most notably is the user interface for trying out widgets, which was introduced in late November. You can now tweak widgets in a variety of ways and see real-time results. There's almost no coding required to make basic changes. When you're finished, Widgetbox spits out code that you can easily copy and paste wherever you'd like.

Widgets are nearly everywhere now, and their presence in Windows Vista will likely make sites like Widgetbox thrive. The advertising potential is huge. I just hope that, whatever happens, there won't be Gore-Tex ads on my weather widget.