Widget Use Cases

I’ve been talking with a number of different startups about widget strategy, and one of the core questions in the discovery process comes down to figuring out exactly what the use cases look like for various widgets.

What is the purpose of your widget?  Who do you think is going to use it?  Is your widget only useful to existing users of your site / service?  Is your widget’s content immediately understandable to even casual passers by?  Does your widget have potential functional value even to those who will never visit your site?

Based on my experiences, there are few different use cases that seem to be prevalent across different types of websites.  Understanding the implications of these use cases can be helpful in terms of prioritizing widget development decisions.

Widget Case 1 - UGC Export Widgets

For user generated content sites, widgets are great for letting your existing user base export their content contributions to their other online presences. 

Examples of these types of widgets are numerous – Flickr widgets let you export your photos, Delicious widgets let you display your bookmarks, and Upcoming.org widgets let you display your events.  RateItAll is about to release a widget that lets its members widgetize their RateItAll profiles and review history.

The upside of this sort of widget is that it gives your existing super users the tools to spread the good word about your site.  The downside is that this sort of widget is unlikely to generate much excitement among folks who aren’t already super users of your service.

Unless your site / service already has a significant user base, this sort of widget is unlikely to move the dial in terms of raising awareness for your company.  For brand new sites, the value of these UGC export widgets becomes even more trivial.

Widget Case 2 – Content Proliferation Widgets

Content proliferation widgets are not so much about letting site users export their content as they are about letting anybody grab and distribute any piece of content that has been aggregated by your site.

This sort of widget works best for one size fits all content that is easily understandable to anybody who consumes it – whether it be on your site, or via another widget.

The best example of this type of widget is YouTube.  By now, everybody understands what to do with a Flash widget video player, and most folks understand how to click through and grab a video for your own profile page or blog.  It doesn’t matter if you actually created / submitted that video, all that matters is that you appreciate the content.  RateItAll’s recent partnership with MuseStorm for Top Ten lists is another example of this sort of widget. 

If your site’s content is easily understandable to folks who are not necessarily users of your site, these sorts of widgets have the potential to be picked up pretty rapidly.  You don’t need a large existing user base, as distribution can happen from widget to widget. 

Widget Case 3 – Demo Widgets

Demo widgets are widgets that demonstrate a website’s core service with the goal of generating leads.

I hesitated about making this its own use case example, as there’s a lot of overlap with Widget Case 4 below.  However, I think that widgets have a lot of potential as lead generation tools, and this sort of widget captures that potential exactly.

The best example that I’ve seen of a service demo / lead generation widget is the Box.net widget.  Box.net is a subscription-based file storage and sharing service whose widget demonstrates exactly that.  If you look at the Box.net widget in my right sidebar, it is immediately apparent that I’m using it to store and share files.  While it is unlikely that you will want to share the exact files that I am sharing, you may find that you want to make use of similar functionality on your own site.

Clicking on the “Make Your Own Widget” allows you to generate widget code that puts you on your way towards using up the free Gig of storage that Box.net offers before their subscription rates kick in.

As I have mentioned before, I find this widget to be an incredibly clever hybrid of useful functionality and lead generation capability.

Widget Case 4 – Service Widgets

Service widgets are functionality driven as opposed to content driven.  Maybe they provide community functionality, maybe communication tools, maybe analytics, or maybe some other service.  The key distinguisher for this type of widget is that it is useful on its own.  There’s no need to visit a home base site to understand its value, and publishers who have never heard of your site can understand what the widget does and why it might be useful to them.

MyBlogLog is a great example of this sort of widget, as is Google AdSense.  Each of the distributed social networks like Wink, Explode, and OthersOnline are striving to be this sort of widget.  Community / Analytics widget WhosAmngUs would also fall into this category, as do recommendation widgets like the Criteo Auto-Roll and communication widgets like Meebo.

To me, this is the most interesting sort of widget as a properly executed service widget has the potential to become part of the plumbing of the Web.  Content can get stale – maybe the Numa Numa kid was entertaining the first time you watched it, but not so much the fiftieth time.  Community, or analytics, or communication, do not get stale.  A company that can provide this sort of compelling functionality in the body of a widget with some network effects built in could really be on to something.

So that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.  UGC Export Widgets, Content Proliferation Widgets, Demo Widgets, and Service Widgets.

Have I missed any big widget use cases?

Comments

[cocofriq]

Great piece--just curious: where do you see the music centric widgets falling into this? Would iLike's fall into Case 1, Finetune's into case 2 or 3?

Thanks,
Stel/coco

[lawrence]

Hi Cocofriq, yeah, I think I would put iLike's in the UGC export bucket. I'm generating playlist history which iLike is spitting out into a widget. So even though it's implicit UGC, it's still UGC. I'll have to check out FineTune.

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