Sexy Widget

Widgetbox – A Review

Like Snipperoo, Widgetbox is a widget platform company that is attempting to wire themselves into every widget installation on the Web. 

Their value proposition to publishers is to try and make it easier for them to discover and manage widgets across their online presences.   If you take the time to install the Widgetbox widget container on your blog, you’ll never have to do it again.

Widgetbox’s value proposition to developers is to provide distribution for their widgets, and to help make it easy for publishers of varying level of technical expertise to put these widgets on their site so that the developer can focus on building the widget.

Applications & Opportunity

I’m not going to spend a lot of time repeating what I said yesterday about the role that widgets are playing in remixing the Web.  One thing I didn’t touch upon is the “age wave” component of all of this.  MySpace has trained an entire generation of Web surfers to be able to plug things into their Web pages.  As these folks migrate off of MySpace and onto more specialized sites, they will expect this same level of customization.

I don’t think this widget stuff is going away any time soon.

The concept of a single platform to manage this process - and the creation of a company that is solely focused on enabling the frictionless flow of widgets – makes a ton of sense to me.

Configuration

Widgetbox is a gorgeous, cleanly designed site.  The widget directory, or Gallery as they call it, is seamlessly integrated into the site.  They make nice use of tabs to allow the user to toggle between the Gallery, and the user control panel (called “My Widgets”)

However, I was a little confused that the first sentence I read on their home page said:

“Widgetbox is an online directory of web widgets for blogs and other web pages.  They work with…”

And it wasn’t the bad grammar that confused me – that happens with companies in launch mode.  It was the fact that their critical “About Us” sentence made no mention of their core business of being a widget management system.  Maybe the current emphasis on the directory has to do with what they see as their first priority as a business - more on this to follow.

I started my configuration process by grabbing one of the featured widgets on their home page.  I was prompted then to set the dimensions of the widget.  After doing that, I clicked a button that said “Get Widget.”

It was only at that point that I got an Ajaxy pop up window that advised me that I needed to put the widget somewhere – either on a widget panel, or directly onto a blog post.

This is what I mean about the widget gallery being integrated into the flow of the widget management system.  The previews and pictures of the widget draw you in, and then, when you grab it, you learn how the core system (panels holding widgets) works.  This process is nicely executed.

Widgets that you grab from the gallery go into a “widget pallet” from which you can drag and drop to build your panel.  Individual widgets can be added and removed, but I didn’t see any way to edit an individual widget on the fly, which was sort of a bummer.  For example, I added a music player to my panel that, annoyingly, had a default setting of autoplay.  I wanted to turn the autoplay component off, but there was no way to go into the widget code from my console.  One of the prices of trying to standardize a process, I guess.

It’s easy to add multiple panels, meaning that you can display different combinations of widgets on your various online presences.

Just for the heck of it, I tried submitting a widget to Widgetbox using the developers’ section.  Surprisingly given the fact that I am not a developer, I didn’t have any problems.  (the widget was later rejected because the outbound links did not open up a new browser)

The widget submission tool provides you with ways to set up your end user customization form (height, width, etc.), and walks you through the process of describing your widget, categorizing it, and uploading a picture that represents it.  Again, this process is very nicely handled.

One point here – should Widgetbox ever offer widgets for sale, they will need some way to authenticate the submitter of the widget.  If money is introduced, it will be a free for all with people submitting other people’s widgets in order to get paid.

Testing

Widgetbox does a couple of very interesting, innovative things in the area of widget implementation that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.

Clicking “Install My Widget” triggers a dropdown menu that lets you choose a destination for your widget panel from each of the big blogging platforms / aggregators such as TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, etc.

Where things get interesting is in the different ways that Widgetbox handles implementation on the various aggregators.

If you select TypePad, a new browser window opens and you are immediately plugged into TypePad’s widget management system.  A preview of your Widgetbox panel shows up immediately, and by checking a box, you can apply your panel to the blog(s) of your choice.  No HTML editing required, and no need to set up a new TypePad TypeList – Widgetbox has done all the implementation work for you.  Very nifty.

If you select MySpace or Xanga (which don’t accept scripts), you are provided with a menu of widget buttons you can put on your MySpace page.  Clicking these buttons will open your widgets in a separate window.  While this clearly isn’t ideal, it’s an interesting way to get around the MySpace restrictions on JavaScript.  I hadn’t seen this approach before.

If you select Blogger as the destination for your panel, the Widgetbox tool does it the old fashioned way by generating a snippet of code that you can plug into your template.

Three different platforms, three different implementation techniques by Widgetbox.

I had no problem implementing my panel on either Blogger or TypePad.  The panel itself is nicely branded, but there is no sign yet of any one click add functionality.

My sense is that the TypePad relationship gives a hint of the direction that Widgetbox would like to go in terms of wiring their platform directly into the big blog aggregators, and removing any need for the end user to wade through code.

Editorial

Widgetbox is impressive.  Even in their very early stages, they seem to be approaching the task of facilitating the free flow of widgets with creativity.  As mentioned earlier, their site design and navigation are beautifully laid out, and they do a great job of using content provided by others (in this case widgets) to draw people in.

The fact that they’ve been able to integrate so quickly into a major blogging platform like TypePad is an important step.

So are people going to use this platform?  I don’t know.  Widgetbox is putting together a heck of a widget directory though, and I have no doubt that both developers and publishers will appreciate all the bells & whistles such as ratings, what’s new, and preview tools.

It’s no accident that the Widgetbox widget directory is tied in so tightly to the platform itself.  Once you have grabbed a widget from the directory, it’s a pretty easy step to go ahead and install the widget – especially if Widgetbox can put together a few more deals like the TypePad one.

So the task at hand seems pretty straightforward; 1) put together the world’s best widget directory to attract developers and publishers alike; 2) blend the directory experience into the platform experience so that using one is using the other; and 3) wire the Widgetbox platform to the big blog aggregators to enable easy implementation.

How hard could that be?  :)

Snipperoo Universal Widget – A Review

Snipperoo is a very young service that bills itself as “the universal widget.”  Unlike most of the other widgets covered in this blog, the Snipperoo widget is not a means of extending an existing service out to the edge.  In this particular case, the widget is the business, and the business is the widget.

The easiest way to think about Snipperoo is as a widget control panel that doesn’t know any site boundaries.  It deigns to be a single point of contact by which the user can control all of their widgets, across all of their online presences.

For anyone who has used TypePad, the Snipperoo service is very similar to TypePad’s TypeLists service.  It’s a highly visual, user friendly interface that attempts to protect the user from having to wade through their site’s template and eyeball html in order to manage their widgets.

Because this is a very young service – they just went into closed beta yesterday – I’m going to try not to nitpick very much.  To the extent possible, I will stay focused on the high level opportunity and some potential success factors.

Applications & Opportunity

If you’re reading this blog, you would probably agree with me that widgets are going to play a big role in how web services are remixed together going forward.  Unlike API’s, you don’t have to be a developer to install a widget.  And each installed widget is an opportunity to put your own personal stamp on the places you frequent online.

From a company perspective, a well executed widget can best any marketing campaign in terms of reach and return on investment.  Snipperoo has bet the farm that consumers’ appetite for these widgets will continue to increase, in parallel with companies’ willingness to create them.

So does the Internet need a cross platform tool to make widget management easy?  It’s too early to tell, I think.  I remember vividly the first time I tried to install a widget on a Blogger blog.  I thought to myself that there had to be an easier way – that there’s no way that the “regular” user would be able to scroll through html and find the right insertion spot.

But then I got used to it.  And it was only after getting used to it that I started my first TypePad blog.  And to be perfectly honest, when I first started using TypePad, I felt that learning how to use TypeLists was a pain in the ass, and wondered why TypePad couldn’t just do it like everybody else.

Now that I actively maintain blogs on TypePad and Blogger and am accustomed to both systems, I can say with some authority that the TypePad system blows the Blogger system away in terms of ease of use.  But there was a definite adoption hurdle there.

So why to go into all of this here?  Because I think that Snipperoo is going to face many of the same issues that TypePad faced in introducing a proprietary widget management system, but without the control that TypePad had.  No matter how slick and user friendly their system is, it’s still going to be a new behavior for users.  It’s still going to have to win enough traction and mindshare to become a destination site.

The three challenges that I believe that Snipperoo has to meet in order to win in this space are; 1) To provide a better way to manage widgets than what exists currently on the big aggregators / platforms (and what will exist on the new generation of widget management systems); and 2) To become a critical part of the widget ecosystem, and as such, be the destination of choice for developers / companies looking to promote their widgets, and users looking to find widgets; 3) Achieve sufficient traction that they are able to provide a compelling “one click add” widget management tool (again, see Fred Wilson’s gold standard post)

Configuration

The concept of Snipperoo is pretty simple.  Your widget management system is made of widget containers, which they call “Panels,” and individual widgets, which they call “Modules.”  The pitch as it stands today is that once you add your Snipperoo Panel to your site(s), all ongoing widget management can be done from your Snipperoo account.

To go back to that Blogger example, if you were using Snipperoo to manage your widgets, you would only have to scroll through your blog’s template once to insert your Snipperoo Panel.  Once that was done, all future management can be done through the slick, friendly, ajaxy Snipperoo tool, and you wouldn’t ever have to worry again about finding the sidebar section of your Blogger template.

From what I could tell, your Snipperoo account lets you resize your widget container,  add new widgets, edit existing widgets, and delete widgets that you no longer want.  I did not see a tool to change the order that your widgets appear within in the panel, but I would imagine that is coming.

Even at its very early stage, all of this basic functionality works on Snipperoo.  I was able to set up my panel without a problem, and add both script and Flash-based widgets to my panel.

You install your widget panel on your blog just the way you would install any other widget.  On TypePad, for example, you would plug your Snipperoo panel directly into the TypeLists platform.  So even though they compete at a certain level, Snipperoo can co-exist with TypeLists.

The Snipperoo widget is a script, so for now, MySpace and other sites that forbid scripts are off limits.

Testing

I tested the Snipperoo Universal Widget on both TypePad and Blogger.  It was fun making one change via my Snipperoo control panel, and having both my TypePad and Blogger templates update dynamically.

As you can see in the sidebar, I added three different widgets with different formats to my Snipperoo panel.  I added the Streampad Flash player with a fixed width, the RateItAll script based beer widget with a floating width, and an image based Last.FM widget.  All three coexisted together within the Snipperoo panel. 

The only widget that I could not get to work is the YouTube widget – it may have been too wide for the format, or I may have had to extend the length of my panel.

As it stands today, there is very little branding or viral efforts evident on the Snipperoo widget.  I’m not going to judge them though yet, as they’ve only been live for about 18 hours.  You also can’t add an individual widget from somebody else’s Snipperoo panel to your own panel.

I also didn’t notice a way to create a second panel.  So those who don’t want to display the exact same widgets on all of their online presences are out of luck.  This would seem to be an easy tweak, however.

Editorial

I really had fun testing and thinking about Snipperoo’s Universal Widget.  It’s an ambitious project, with plenty to like.

But the competition is daunting.

Indeed, not only is Snipperoo competing with cross platform widget management systems like Widgetbox and TheSpringBox, but they are also competing with every homegrown widget system – whether it by the old fashioned “view template” option, or a slick, custom system like TypePad’s TypeLists.

I also wonder about how Snipperoo is going to get the word out – how they are going to make their widget management system part of the infrastructure of the Web.  Is a mildly superior user experience really going to be a compelling enough reason for users to adopt a new way to manage their widgets?  TypePad was able to ram TypeLists down our throats by virtue of their ownership of the platform – Snipperoo doesn’t have the same luxury.

It would seem to me that there is going to need to be a big Bizdev deal or two to jumpstart this company – Blogger springs to mind as the ideal partner, given their reach and lack of any homegrown widget management system.

But in my mind, the key to the whole thing is how effective Snipperoo can be in making Internet-wide, one click widget adds a reality.  You’re browsing your favorite social networking site.  You see a widget you like.  You click a button on the widget and the widget is immediately added to your Snipperoo control panel, which updates your online presences around the Web.

Now that is a powerful vision. 

TheSpringBox MySpace RSS Reader – A Review

TheSpringBox is the mysterious widget site owned by Fox Interactive Media that some speculate may be being positioned as the sole widget provider to MySpace.  Currently, the site offers a download that lets you run widgets on your desktop, as well as a Flash-based RSS reader widget.

The Flash-based RSS reader widget is sort of a big deal, as up until this point, getting a feed reader that worked on MySpace was a frustrating process.  While some services have tried to offer this functionality (Nooz, Rhapsody), I had never been able to get them to work – and believe me, I tried.  There were image based workarounds that sort of worked, but were not exactly user friendly.

**Note, I just tried Rhapsody's MySpace RSS reader again, and it worked.**

The RSS widget reader allows users to plug in a feed url, and it generates a snippet of code that can placed on any site accepting Flash embeds, including of course, MySpace.  You don’t have to register to configure this widget.

TheSpringBox offers a couple of other content based widgets such as a clock and a weather forecast widget, but for now I’m just going to focus on the RSS reader.

Applications & Opportunity

The absence of an easy to use and configure RSS reader that worked on MySpace had been a glaring hole on the widget landscape.  I would guess that of MySpace’s 100M+ user base, there are a significant number of folks who have blogs on other sites.  These people now have a way to consolidate their content on their MySpace profile page.

Beyond the personal blogs, the thousands of businesses that have set up MySpace profiles now have a way to feed their fresh content directly to their profile.  A widgetized RSS reader will be a helpful way for these businesses to keep their MySpace profile page fresh with their corporate talking points.  Write once, publish many is a heck of a lot easier than write many, publish many.

The million dollar question, I think, is whether businesses will be willing to pay for an RSS widget for their MySpace profile, given that TheSpringBox option is the only game in town.  By artificially controlling the market for these sorts of widgets, Fox Interactive Media may be able to squeeze a few more dollars from these freeloading, corporate profiles.

To sum things up, this is an extremely useful widget with potentially huge adoption.  Whether Fox Interactive plans to try and keep (make?) TheSpringBox as the only working RSS reader for MySpace remains to be seen.

Configuration

At the moment, this is a bare bones widget.

Clicking the “Widgetize” tab will take you to a form that asks for your feed’s URL, and allows you to set the width and height of the widget.  Clicking “apply” generates a preview of the RSS reader, and a snippet of code that you can paste into your blog or MySpace profile.

Currently, there are no design customization options.  That being said, it’s not a bad looking RSS reader, and certainly is better than any of the alternatives on the market in terms of widgets that work with MySpace.

Testing

Not surprisingly, given that TheSpringBox is owned by Fox Interactive Media, the widget works fine on MySpace.  For a good example, check out Mashable’s MySpace page.  Pete has gone the extra mile of adding his own code snippet to allow others to put Mashable news on their MySpace profiles.

Pete’s hacking of this widget brings up an interesting point – in its current incarnation, this widget has zero branding, and zero viral features.  You have to go into the code itself to figure out that TheSpringBox is the service that hosts this widget.  There is a “menu” tab, but it is grayed out.  There is a downward facing arrow that will take you to TheSpringBox, but there is no way for the user to know that without trying it out.

Editorial

While most start-ups bend over backwards to the viral part right at launch, it would appear to be an afterthought for TheSpringBox.  Clearly, TheSpringBox’s status as a Fox Interactive company makes their challenges a bit different than those of the average start-up.

I haven’t talked much about the download component of TheSpringBox.  If you visit the site, they are clearly focused on the download.  The benefits of downloading the desktop version are pitched aggressively throughout the site, and they make you click a few times to get to the MySpace widget.

So why is the download so important?  Fred Wilson calls the MySpace music widget the gold standard of the widget world because you can click once and add any song that you stumble across to your profile page.  It seems to me that the primary value of the download is something similar – once you’ve downloaded the software, you can click on any TheSpringBox widget and add it to your desktop (and MySpace profile?) with just one click.

Obviously, driving enough downloads to make this meaningful would be a monumental task for most start-ups.  But for one that is owned by Fox Interactive?  My sense is that they can push just about anything they want – especially if there is a clear value to their user base.  And clicking once to add a widget as opposed to navigating back and forth between edge feeder and MySpace would seem to be pretty valuable.

As interesting and useful as TheSpringBox’s RSS reader widget is, it would seem to be just the tip of the iceberg.  The real story that should be watched is how successful Fox Interactive is in driving downloads, and using its might to make TheSpringBox the default widget platform for all of MySpace.

Tourb.us Concert Widget – a Review

Tourb.us is a service that helps users stay on top of live shows that are coming to their area.  Tourb.us generates email alerts, text messages, RSS feeds, and iCal feeds based on user preferences when a user’s favorite bands are playing locally.  There is also a social networking component in which users set up profiles and interact with others based on shared band interests.

The Tourb.us widget is an extension of the site’s core concert reminder service, and dynamically generates a badge that can be placed on the user’s blog or personal Web site that displays upcoming shows that the publisher might be interested in based on their implicit and explicit preferences.

Tourb.us accepts allows users to synch information from their Last.FM accounts or upload files from their iTunes, which means that once a user is configured properly, the Tourb.us service can be powered by implicit data.  The user also has the option to explicitly indicate which bands they like on the Tourb.us destination site.

Applications and Opportunity

As the music industry continues its transition from a hit culture to a long tail culture in which listeners are able to find obscure bands which match their tastes, it is becoming harder and harder to keep track of which bands are coming in town when. 

Tourb.US attempts to address this problem by tying into some of the more popular music listening services like Last.FM and iTunes, and dynamically reminding the user when bands they might be interested in are in town.

I see the Tourb.us widget being used a couple of different ways.  Like the Last.FM widget, folks may want to use this widget to show off all of the cool music they are into.  It’s also conceivable that folks might also want to use this as a social meetup / stalker service – readers of a person’s blog can track what shows the publisher will be attending.

But the primary way that I see folks using this widget is as a show reminder service for themselves.  In many ways, having your show alerts show up as a badge on your blog is more convenient than other alert mechanisms as it’s less intrusive.  If you assume that most blog publishers visit their own blogs at least once a day, the ability to put a quick visual snapshot of cool upcoming shows is a handy tool.

Configuration

The widget link is located in the footer of the site, and triggers a widget configuration page that allows the user to choose what types of shows to include (yes and maybe), how many upcoming shows to include, which of five designs to use, and what link back format to use.  As far as I can tell, “maybe” shows are all shows which the user might want to attend based on their listening habits.

There is a useful, ajaxy preview tool in the right margin which updates as the user selects their widget preferences.  Overall, I had no problems configuring my Tourb.US widget.

Testing

The Tourb.us widget is a script, so it does not work with MySpace or Blogger posts.  I had no problems adding the widget to Typepad.  At the time of writing, refreshes of Blogger templates were not working.  I'll check back in with the results of this testing once Blogger is working again.

Editorial

I like this widget.

I like that it can be powered solely by implicit data, that its personalized to the user’s music and location preferences, and that it ties back into a social networking service.

The key to the whole thing, I think, it its ability to synch with Last.FM and iTunes.  Without this functionality, Tourb.us would be just another service that would be very cool if only I had the time to add data to it.  With this functionality, it is something that I plan to start using immediately.

The Last.FM integration is flawless.  All you need to do is to enter your Last.FM user name, and your Tourb.uz widgets will start populating.  The iTunes integration is a little more complicated, as you need to manually generate an XML file from your iTunes account, and upload that to Tourb.us.  Tourb.us does do a very good job of explaining exactly how to do this, however.

I think the biggest thing that the Tourb.us widget has going for it is that it creeps very close to being a “need to have” service, as opposed to a “nice to have.”  Nothing bugs me more than missing a favorite band at a local venue.  Tourb.us could potentially solve this.

In terms of functionality, Tourb.us offers just about everything that I would want.  The only thing that’s missing is an expansive database of artist / show information.  A number of my favorite artists are still not their database including some pretty well known acts like Weezer and G. Love.  The good news is that by virtue of its Last.FM and iTunes synching capabilities, Tourb.us has a handy means of prioritizing new bands to add to their database.

If Tourb.us can find a cost efficient way of keeping their db up to date, and the tools to synch with services like Last.FM and iTunes remain open to them, I would expect to start seeing a lot more of these widgets showing up around the Web.

Answerbag Widget – A Review

Answerbag is a question & answer service similar to Yahoo! Answers that allows members to ask and answer questions on virtually any topic.  Answerbag is owned by Infosearch Media, who is a fairly significant player in the SEM space.  Infosearch’s primary area of focus is the generation of unique, search engine friendly content for Web sites.

The Answerbag widget extends this question and answer service to blogs and other sites that accept scripts.  The content displayed in these widgets can be filtered by category, so that a site about consumer electronics can display only questions and answers related to electronics.

Applications & Opportunity

The Q&A space has been getting a lot of buzz recently, driven primarily by the early success of Yahoo! Answers.  Indeed, each of the big three now has a horse in this race with Microsoft Live QNA and Google Answers joining Yahoo! Answers (although GA has a slightly different model).  The earliest player that I’m aware of in this space is a site called Wondir.

So why are Q&A sites getting so much attention?  Yahoo’s Bradley Horowitz writes eloquently about the ability for Q&A sites to provide answers to questions that may not even be on the Web yet.  Search engines are great for stuff that is out there, but if the answer that you are looking for doesn’t exist on a crawlable Web page, you’re out of luck.

One other reason that I think this sort of service has some potential is due to the fact that the workload is shared among multiple publishers (unlike most blogs) and the publisher has the ability to write about any theme (unlike most ratings / review sites).

As far as the opportunities for a widgetized extension of this sort of service, it’s tough to tell.  My guess is that a lot of community Web sites that are powered entirely by the contributions of their members might be leery of going out of their way to drive those members to another destination site community.  A complementary service, like a blog, may be more likely to want to engage their user base with interactive content, with the knowledge that their readers most likely won’t get the same experience that they offer at the Answerbag destination site.

I do think that a version of this widget branded to the publisher might have some legs.  Existing online communities would probably be more willing to tap into Answerbag’s content and platform should their brand experience be preserved.

Clearly, the potential market for this type of service is pretty broad, and pretty mainstream.  Everybody has some questions and some answers.  This is not a new behavior.  It’s just a matter of making it so Answerbag is one of the vehicles that folks choose to express their questions and answers.

Configuration

The Answerbag widget is featured prominently on the site’s home page.  According to this Techcrunch review, widgets and open APIs are a huge part of Answerbag’s strategy to hang in there against the Big Three.

Clicking the widget link on the home page takes you to a widget overview page that provides screenshots, highlights the value of the service, and explains how the widget works.  From there, you launch the widget configuration tool.

There are four different customization options provided by the Answerbag tool; what components you would like to include in your widget (just questions, questions & answers, etc.), what categories or keyword you would like to filter content by, how many questions you would like to display, and how you would like to sort those questions.  There’s also a preview tool that shows you what your widget will look like in real time, as you mess with the configuration options.  There’s no option to change the width, but it’s easy enough to go into the CSS and adjust it.

You don’t have to be registered to configure a widget (though you do have to be registered to participate in questions and answers.)

Overall, I found the Answerbag’s widget configuration tool to be easy to find, easy to use, and very intuitive.  Because it seems to be targeted at blogs who would most likely put the widget in the sidebar, I think it would probably make sense to people define the width via the tool as opposed to going into the code.

Testing

I had no problems adding this widget to a Blogger sidebar, or to Typepad.  On Blogger, it was sort of a pain to post the widget into the sidebar, and then find the block of code in the template in order adjust the width.  I guess I could have used a text editor, but again, why not make it easy for those even less skilled than me by including the width in the configuration tool?

I also tried submitting a question via the widget, and I was immediately taken to the Answerbag site in order to register.  I understand exactly why this is required, but it may be an obstacle to adoption for both blog publisher and widget participant.  I also did not get an email confirmation message from the site, and it was not immediately clear who I should contact to deal with this.

Editorial

There are a few things that I really like about this widget.  I really like that it’s a widget that solicits content.  A big empty question field is a lot more inviting than a link that says “click here to ask a question.”  I also really like the airplay that Answerbag gives to its widget on its site, and the fact that there is one centralized page on Answerbag.com that allows you to configure any widget (as opposed to having to browse through the site to find the right widget.

The filtering option is very cool as well.  If  you flash forward to a time when Answerbag has a ton of content and a ton of activity, it’s conceivable that they might be able to provide a thematically relevant widget to virtually any site.

However, my sense is that if Answerbag really believes that this widget (plus an open API) will cause them to overtake Yahoo! Answers, I’d have to say that I’m a little skeptical.  There is nothing defendable about this widget.  If it really turns out to be a difference maker, there is no reason that Yahoo! Answers couldn’t just copy it and push it on their massive user base.

One note on Answerbag’s prospects for survival against the big three: Answerbag is owned by Infosearch Media, who has made a killing on providing unique, thematically relevant content to webmasters looking to rank better in search engines.  I don’t think Answerbag should be evaluated based on whether they can somehow defeat the Big Three’s Q&A plays – it should be evaluated based on how efficient it is in generating content for Infosearch’s webmaster clients.  And in that respect, I’d say its prospects are very good.

So just to sum up my thoughts on the Answerbag widget – it’s very well executed, and could potentially be a useful tool for site owners to add an interactive component to their Web sites.  I don’t think online communities will be implementing this any time soon (for the reasons mentioned above), but there’s no reason that Answerbag couldn’t carve a niche out of the blogosphere or independent Web sites.  I am very interested to see how Infosearch Media plans to incorporate this service into their SEM tools.

Click through to write your own review of the Answerbag widget.

Dave.TV Video Widget – A Review

Dave.TV is a video sharing community that allows users to browse, upload, and share videos.  Users create channels of videos, which can then be embedded on blogs or personal profile pages.

The Dave.TV widget is Flash-based and therefore compatible with most of the major online communities such as MySpace, Friendster, and Blogger, and can be grabbed by any visitor to the site – logged in or not.

Applications & Opportunity

It is been well documented that there are more than 100 funded video sharing communities out there.  Clearly Dave.TV is playing in a very crowded space, with more big names entering the fray every day.

I think it’s safe to say that the chances of Dave.TV somehow supplanting companies like YouTube, Google Video, Aol Uncut, and now, MSN Soapbox as the preferred destination site for folks sharing videos are nil.

However, Grouper was able to battle its way to a favorable exit by virtue of its strong technology platform.  It would appear that Dave.TV is trying to follow a similar path.

Configuration

While YouTube has chosen a widget configuration route that puts ease of use above all else, Dave.TV has opted instead for allowing the publisher the chance to customize the video player’s skin.

The ramifications of this are that instead of being able to grab the widget code directly from the video page like you can on YouTube, visitors to Dave.TV need to click the “embed” link, then choose from 12 custom skins or 18 colors before generating the embed code.

Despite the somewhat more involved process, the Dave.TV widget configuration tool is flawless.  It’s super easy to choose a personalized skin, and an ajaxy preview tool shows you exactly what it will look like.  They really did a nice job with this tool.

Testing

I had no problems implementing the Dave.TV widget on MySpace.  I did have some problems including the widget in a TypePad or Blogger post - it kept showijng up in the footer or sidebar, as opposed to the body of the post.

The player itself is gorgeous.  Rolling your mouse over the player displays a number of features including email to a friend, flag, more media info, and my favorite, a “get this channel” option which displays the widget code right in the player.

Editorial

As this is a widget blog, I’ll start with the good news.  Dave.TV has flawlessly executed its widget for the MySpace community (though less so for Blogger and Typepad).  It’s easy to grab, easy to customize, and looks really good on the page.  More importantly, Dave.TV nailed the viral aspects. Their player is well branded without being taking the focus away from the media, and their display of the embed code right in the player is perfectly executed.

The bad news, of course, is that they’re up against a daunting array of competitors with absurdly deep pockets.

Taking a peek at Dave.TV’s “about” section should give you peak of what they’re up to.

"DAVE.TV exists for the Purpose of ‘Facilitating the Connection between Producers and Consumers of Digital Media in a way that benefits everyone.;  Our unique Cross-Platform Digital Content Ecosystem allows for multiple devices to connect to our next-generation broadcasting network that uses Internet Protocol (IP) to deliver digital media to televisions, PCs, and other home, portable and mobile entertainment appliances and devices using broadband connectivity.”

This is not touchy-feely, community site language here.  This company is attempting to present itself as a technically superior platform, which like Grouper, could bring significant value to the right buyer.

Dave.TV’s perfectly executed widget (at least for MySpace) is a nice extension of this strategy.  Who knows how many new users are left out there to be wooed away from YouTube.  That’s not really the point.  The point, I think, is to show anybody doing due diligence that this is a technically superior platform, in all aspects.

Companies looking to build a widget, especially a video widget, could do a lot worse than modeling theirs off of Dave.TV’s.

Click through to leave your own review of the Dave.TV video widget.

Kaboodle Shopping Widget – A Review

Kaboodle is a social shopping service that allows members to collect and save product information from around the Web, and to share that product information with others.  The Kaboodle widget is an extension of this service, and allows users to generate a snippet of code that will display their product recommendations on their own blog or personal Web site (the site must accept scripts).

Each new user begins with four separate pages that can be widgetized – a shopping page, a top movies page, a vacation plan page, and a wish list page.  Additional pages can be added should the user so choose.

The strength of Kaboodle would appear to be in its browser extensions which allow users to easily extract data (product titles, images, etc.) from any Web page and add them to their recommendation page on Kaboodle, where they can be shared with others through community tools or widgets.

Applications & Opportunity

Given my recent coverage on the social shopping space (see here and here), I’m not going to repeat my thoughts on the prospects for a social shopping widget here.  Let’s just say that the combination of an exploding number of blogs with data that says that people value the recommendations of shoppers above all else when making a purchasing decision makes the concept of a social shopping widget pretty interesting.

Configuration

The Kaboodle widget does not get much emphasis on the site.  Nowhere on the home page is there any mention of the ability to embed your product recommendations on other sites, and their definition of the activity “share” seems to be limited to “share everything on one simple page.”

However, as you browse main recommendation pages on the site, you’ll notice links in the right hand column that say “Put this page on your blog or website.”  Clicking this link triggers a widget configuration tool that allows you to set how many images you want to display, what the width should be (100px or 75px), if the widget should be horizontal or vertical, and what the colors should make up the background, border, and links.

There’s a very slick, ajaxy preview tool that displays in real time what your widget will look like as you mess with the various configuration options.

Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be an option to create a single product widget – the widget configuration tool only shows up on the main recommendation pages for each user.  Also, the widget only displays the image associated with the product -  there doesn’t seem to be any option to display the comments or review that the recommender has associated with the product.

Besides the lack of airplay that Kaboodle gives to their widgets, the only issues I have with the configuration process – and these are very nitpicky – are that when configuring someone a widget from somebody else’s product page, the language implies that it’s your product page, and the tool displays the text “image size” instead of “image width.”  Yes, these are very minor points.

Testing

As mentioned earlier, the Kaboodle widget uses a script, so it’s not compatible with MySpace or Blogger posts.  I was able to add the widget without a problem to my Typepad template, and to a Blogger sidebar.

Editorial

It just doesn’t seem to me that Kaboodle is putting a lot of emphasis (yet?) on the widgetization of their service.  From the absence of a widget mention on the home page, to the lack of an individual product widget, there seem to be a few signs that the Kaboodle widget is an afterthought.  This is stark contrast to a site like ThisNext which defines shopcasting as one of the core activities of the site.

I also think that it’s a mistake to make the widget consist solely of an image of the product.  Without any context, it’s sort of difficult for the reader of a blog to understand why a random product pic is showing up in the sidebar.  When I look at the ThisNext widget side by side with the Kaboodle widget, it’s much clearer to me that the ThisNext widget represents a personal recommendation from me to my readers (though it takes up a lot more real estate.)

Social shopping is a very new space, and nobody really knows what are going to be the key features / emphases that lead one service to success, and another to failure.  But it seems to me that effectively empowering members to broadcast their product picks around the Web will play a big role.

To be fair, it’s very difficult for small, young companies to cover every base.  Kaboodle has done a tremendous job on the Bizdev front, most notably with the eBay deal.  Their browser bookmarklets are extremely impressive.  The introduction of their widget is another step in the right direction, but the current iteration still needs some work.

Click through to write your own review of the Kaboodle shopping widget.

Streampad Music Widget – A Review

Streampad is a service that allows you to create music playlists and add them to an embeddable music widget that you can place on your blog or social networking profile page.  Playlists can be created by selecting from tracks linked to from the Streampad site, by pointing to a blog that contains MP3 files, or eventually (hopefully?) by pointing to your personal music collection. 

Streampad is trying to take the wildly popular feature on MySpace that allows members to embed tracks from their favorite artists on their profile page, and apply it on a distributed, Internet-wide basis.

It is a hugely ambitious concept with lots of obstacles, and plenty of upside.

NOTE: I'm speculating about Streampad's plans to let you run their player from your personal music collection.  Currently the site's language says:

Streampad allows you to listen to your music from any computer connected to the web. This feature is currently in beta testing.

Applications & Opportunity

It’s easy to imagine a scenario where the Streampad music widget takes off.  Most people listen to music, and many people feel that the music that they listen to says something about them.  The ability to personalize your home(s) on the Web with a music track that captures a personal mood, style, or taste could certainly be appealing to a broad audience, as we have seen with MySpace.

Because of the digital rights issues involved and challenges in getting permissions from thousands of artists, nobody has yet solved this problem for bloggers and the vast majority of social networking sites.

If Streampad can overcome the digital rights issues and execute well, as one of the first players in this space, they have a chance to become standard fare on blogs, and on social networking sites without the will or means to solve the copyright issues themselves.

Configuration

During its current beta period, the Streampad site does not go out of its way to educate visitors how to set up a Streampad widget.  You sort of have to poke around a bit to get a feel.

Eventually, you find that clicking on “Web” or “Concerts” gives you a couple of options for selecting tracks for your playlist or for sharing a standalone track via a widget.

There are currently no customization options for the widget if you access it from their main site channels, although depending on how you generate your widget, the width varies.  For example, selecting the “share” option associated with tracks in the “Web” or “Concerts” sections generate a widget that is 200px wide.  But using the tool that lets you pull MP3 files from a specific URL generates a default widget that is 150px wide.

After poking around a bit, I was able to generate widgets from Web and Concert tracks without a problem for both MySpace and Typepad, though the default widget is too wide for my Typepad sidebar.  I was able to go into the code to adjust the width.

I only managed to find the tool that lets you aggregate tracks from a particular blog because I had bookmarked the link from a Fred Wilson blog post.  As I don’t have any MP3 files in my blog, I plugged in Fred’s URL.  The tool worked great and immediately generated a widget that fit nicely in my Typepad sidebar and that displayed all of the MP3 files from Fred’s blog.  There were also a couple of basic customization options available with this tool – things like setting autostart on or off, and defining the height and width of the widget.

While the design is not super user friendly, the widget configuration tools are functional.  I would imagine that the design quirks are due to the fact that Streampad’s (speculated) core service, allowing people to stream (listen to?) their personal music collection anywhere, is still in closed beta.

Testing

I successfully added the Streampad music widget to MySpace, Blogger, and Typepad.  As mentioned earlier, there are some inconsistencies in configuration options depending on which Streampad tool you use, but they didn’t really pose any problems.  The widget works.

Editorial

I spent the evening messing around with the Streampad music widget, and I have to say, it’s really growing on me.  It helps that of the handful of concerts that Streampad has represented on its site, several of my all-time favorite bands are represented.

The real stand out feature of this widget in my opinion is the “share” link that shows up on the bottom left of every Streampad widget.  Clicking this link displays the embed code right in the body of the widget.  No new browsers open.  There’s no need to register.  You don’t need to go to the Streampad site to learn more.  It just displays the code, ready for the grabbing.

This is superior execution of the critical viral aspect, and you can imagine how this could play out.  A few early adopters with good music taste put this widget on their blog.  If somebody likes the widget, or even just likes one of the songs in the widget, they are seconds away from grabbing it and putting it on their own site.  This is pretty powerful.

I don’t know enough about the digital rights issues involved in this to predict how quickly Streampad can expand the tracks that they link to, or what the issues are involved in allowing users to point to their own musical libraries.  MySpace is able to make a simple deal with musicians on its site – you can use our infrastructure to promote your music to our massive user base, but you must let our users play your tracks on their profile pages.  On a distributed, Internet wide basis, the issue gets much trickier.

Streampad has done enough already to be very intriguing, however.  This is definitely a widget to watch.

Click through to leave your own review of the Streampad music widget.

Last.FM Music Widget – A Review

Last.FM is a music recommendation service that draws on implicit music listening data collected by its iScrobbler download. The meta data of music listened to by Last.FM members on their computers is uploaded to Last.FM via iScrobbler, which enables Last.FM’s core services of creating custom music stations, facilitating introductions between “musical neighbors,” and recommending bands.

The Last.FM Widget – called Last.FM Music Charts by the site – is a visual representation of the music data collected for each user via the iScrobbler upload. In other words, Last.FM charts what you’re listening to, and allows you to add these charts to your blog, social network profile, or personal Web site.

At its simplest level, the Last.FM music widget allows Last.FM members to show off what they’re listening to during any given week, without actually having to do anything (once they’ve installed the widget).

Applications and Opportunity

With the explosion of digital music through iPod/iTunes and the explosion of customizable profile pages via social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, the Last.FM music widget has a huge potential market to work with. The implicit nature of the data associated with this widget is a significant advantage as well – unlike other music content widgets, the user doesn’t have to make any explicit choices about what bands or tracks to display. All the users have to do is what they were doing anyway – listen to music.

The Last.FM music widget plays directly to the vanity of music snobs. People who love music tend to wear their music listening habits like a badge of honor. Among connoisseurs, it’s a big deal to discover that next big act, or conversely, to consistently listen to stuff that nobody else has ever heard of. The Last.FM music widget is the perfect vehicle for music snobs to display how good their tastes are.

The biggest challenge that destination social media sites have is getting the word out about their service. Last.FM’s music widget allows its existing members to recruit new members, and perfectly conveys exactly what the site is – a personalized music player. This widget would seem to be a nice strategic tool for Last.FM to attract new users.

Configuration

It’s a little tricky to find the widgets section of Last.FM. I couldn’t find it on my user profile dashboard of controls, and clicking the “Charts” tab does not take you to the widgets section, even though Last.FM calls their widget “Last.FM Charts.” You need to click on the “Tools” tab to get things set up.

Once you find the right page, the process is very smooth, customizable, and elegant. You can configure your widget with bands or tracks, and with weekly or all-time data.

You can build your own design with a nifty chart builder tool, or you can choose from tens of template designs. Template designs are neatly laid out by popularity, editors’ picks, or recently added.

Interestingly, Last.FM widgets are generated as images on the Last.FM servers, and sporadically updated on the widget output pages. My guess is that this is to avoid heavy crunching of the Last.FM servers. I haven’t found the lack of a dynamic feed of data to be annoying however. Weekly updates are enough to allow the Last.FM widgets to portray what music you’re listening during an approximate time period.

One minor annoyance is that it’s a little difficult to tell in most cases which widget designs will fit in a sidebar, and which will only work in a wider area.

Testing

I was able to add the Last.FM music widget to Blogger, Typepad, and MySpace without a problem. Because it’s an image and not a script, this widget should work anywhere that allows html. As mentioned earlier, this widget does not provide dynamic data updates – in my experience the lag for updates has been about a week.

Editorial

I have not found a widget that I appreciate more than the Last.FM music widget. Its key strengths are its ability to portray something unique about the publisher, the fact that it’s fueled by implicit and not explicit data, and the almost universal desire of folks to share the music that they’re listening to.

The only possible knock that I can think of about this widget is that it’s a nice to have, not a need to have. It doesn’t provide any additional functionality to a Web page, like the Meebo Me widget, for example. If you fast forward two years to when every online business is pushing a widget of some kind, I can see adoption decisions being made along the lines of required vs. preferred. In this sort of a world, the content based Last.FM widget may lose out to a functionally based widget such IM or a shopping cart. By then however, I would expect the Last.FM widget to evolve to be an actual music player.

Clearly, the real hurdle for Last.FM is getting people to download its software. Once you do that, the adoption and enjoyment of its music widget is an absolute no-brainer.

FavoriteThingz Widget - A Review

FavoriteThingz Widget Review

Like the ThisNext widget, the FavoriteThingz widget is a distributed shopping widget which allows users to create lists of brands, people, or products that they like, and display them on the blog, social networking profile page, or personal Web site.

FavoriteThingz was developed by Sprout Commerce, the makers of MyPickList, and is clearly meant to target the MySpace generation. The Flash based widget has various choices for fancy transitions, and the site itself features celebrity favorites from folks like Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson.

The service offers revenue sharing based on affiliate conversions driven by FavoriteThingz badges, though it was unclear to me exactly what the revenue share of the affiliate commission is between the publisher and FavoriteThingz. The site’s language says as follows:

A commission is earned when someone makes a qualifying online purchase from one of our preferred partners through a registered members FavoriteThingz badge/widget. PLEASE NOTE: Only merchants listed as preferred partners offer cash back.

Applications and Opportunity

In addition to the social shopping factors described here, FavoriteThingz would appear to be trying to leverage teens’ tendency to associate themselves with the brands that they consume. Indeed, the widget itself looks like an ad to me. The FavoriteThingz widget appears to be an attempt get teens to act as an ad delivery mechanism. This shouldn’t be surprising given that this is social shopping, but FavoriteThingz’s execution just feels much less nuanced than ThisNext’s, which feels more like a tool to help friends share info among themselves.

Unlike ThisNext, the FavoriteThingz widget is Flash based, and works fine with MySpace, Friendster, and other sites that don’t allow scripts.

If FavoriteThingz can become the preferred method for MySpacers to show off what brands and products their using, they have a big upside. Conversely, if Fox Media decides that they don’t want FavoriteThingz slipping affiliate dollars out the back door from their user base, they could have a big distribution problem.

Configuration

I really struggled to configure my FavoriteThingz widget. As is my wont, I tried to throw my weight behind supporting the Negra Modelo brand. Unfortunately this brand was not yet in the FavoriteThingz database so I had to try the manual configuration option.

The manual configuration option asks you to fill in the name of the item, and add an image – either by adding the url of the image, or uploading the image.

Just to see what would happen, I added a Flickr url that corresponded to a picture of a Negra Modelo bottle. This resulted in an error message from the site that said, “You must add at least one item to your list.”

I then browsed around on Google Images for a suitable picture. I first tried uploading an image that was about 35KB – it resulted an error about the image being too big. I then tried one that was 23KB, same error. I finally found one that was 13KB, but even that was too big for the system. And nowhere did the tool tell me what the size limit was. It turned out to be a big waste of my time.

After spending about ten minutes battling the image upload tool, I relented and sold out Negra Modelo and instead selected a preloaded Guinness logo.

Once you battle through the item add process, FavoriteThingz offers you a very slick customization tool that allows you to format your badge, and to choose from three neat transitions. This part worked fine, and is helped by a very cool preview feature.

At the time of writing, FavoriteThingz only had about 1,000 products/brands in their database. Given how much they need manual product adds, they must find a way to make this image add process a heck of a lot easier, or it will be a major hurdle to adoption.

Testing

FavoriteThingz offers two different snippets of code for implementing your widget: one optimized for MySpace, and one optimized for everywhere else.

The FavoriteThingz widget is too wide for this TypePad blog's sidebar. The right column gets cut off, and other than going into the code, I didn’t see a formatting option that would have allowed me to choose something that was sidebar friendly.  (this may be because MyPicklist is for blogs, and FavoriteThingz is for MySpace)

I had no problems adding the widget to MySpace or Blogger.

One comment about the display of the widget: it appears that the FavoriteThingz guys really took the importance of viral adoption to heart. Rolling your mouse over any portion of the widget triggers big text that invites you to learn more about FavoriteThingz. Oddly, however, nowhere does the widget display my user name, as in, “LCoburn’s Favorite Thingz.” I really think that as is, this particular widget could be confused an ad served by the hosting site that is no way related to the user. This is problematic, I think.

Editorial

FavoriteThingz has done a nice job making a widget that is accessible to each of the major online communities. Their widget customization and preview tools are impressive, and I believe that the revenue sharing program is an important marketing tool.

However, the problems that I had in manually adding a favorite brand of mine to their database don’t bode well for the prospects of massive adoption of this widget. Additionally, the over emphasis on promoting their own service via their widget – at the expense of the user being able to effectively convey that the widget is portraying something personal about them – would seem to defeat the whole point of social product recommendations as a form of self expression.

These issues are fixable, but with services like ThisNext executing very well, I would imagine that time is of the essence.

Click through to leave your own review of the FavoriteThingz widget.