Those of you who made it to the sold out Widgets up the Wazoo 2 (sfnewtech) last night - which I had the pleasure of moderating - saw a great show. From top to bottom, the demos were superb. Not only did we have top tier companies on the bill, but we actually had the founders of Gigya, iWidgets, Widgetbox, and MuseStorm represented in the lineup.
Here's a quick recap:
Glam Media, the events sponsor, kicked things off with some slides. Sadly, they ran out of time for the demo portion, though Myles graciously gave them another minute as "they were buying the drinks."
Gigya Founder and CEO Eyal Magen then gave a quick demonstration of some of Gigya's widget infrastructure / distribution tools. He showcased an implementation that they had recently done for Coca-Cola, and highlighted Gigya's big traction (150MM unique viewers last month) and ease of implementation. I found his discussion of how Gigya stays on top of changing destination platforms interesting (e.g. what happens when MySpace changes their platform in the middle of the night and suddenly the "add to MySpace button" doesn't work any more) - apparently they rely on a combination of around the clock human monitoring, combined with automated tools.
Peter Yared from iWidgets went next, and demonstrated how iWidget's publishing tool could be used to convert an RSS feed of RateItAll reviews into a Facebook and / or MySpace application. Peter was able to build a nice looking FB application, complete with newsfeed story integration and the ability for other RateItAll members to plug in their own RateItAll name to create their own personalized app, in about three minutes. I think iWidgets won the "gee whiz" award of the night with its flurry of live dragging and dropping. Also interesting is the iWidgets revenue model - they only charge for clicks back to the host site (CPC), as opposed to impressions (CPM).
Giles Goodwin from Widgetbox continued the demo, by taking the RateItAll reviewer app that Peter had just created with iWidgets, and dropping it into the Widgetbox gallery. He then demonstrated how this page served as a showcase and launchpad for the app, both in terms of organic search and distribution buttons. I was sorry that Widgetbox CEO (and former Hummer Winblad partner) wasn't there so I could ask him "What's to keep Google from doing this." Will was very gracious when my company pitched him at Hummer Winblad, but it still would have been fun to turn the tables on him :)
Ori Soen from MuseStorm was next, and he demonstrated MuseStorm's widget publishing tool that allows you to easily pull in different elements such as video, polls, ratings, and more. On the output side, MuseStorm supports the iPhone, in addition to big properties like Facebook and MySpace. MuseStorm partners with Gigya for distribution and the tool has been specifically built for agencies.
The final demo was from Todd Fast, CTO of Zembly. Zembly is a private beta social application publishing tool with a couple of twists - not only is the output social, but the publishing itself is social. Developers collaborate using Zembly's framework. Unlike the MuseStorm and iWidgets tools which try to emulate PowerPoint, there is a bit of lightweight coding involved in using Zembly's tool. One other interesting / unusual thing about Zembly is that they are wholly owned by Sun Microsystems, giving them some advantages (and disadvantages) versus traditional startups which Todd spoke very candidly about.
My favorite demo of the night was the iWidgets / Widgetbox tag team. Peter and Giles were able to show how to take an RSS feed of user activity, turn it into a slick looking, social application, and prime it for distribution in under ten minutes.
After the demos, I caught up with a few interesting folks including Michael Chin from KickApps, Niall Kennedy (sign up for Widget Summit now!), Mani Iyer from quiz site Kwanzoo, Tom Hicks from Caachi, and PJ Gurumohan from feed company Genwi.
I think a good time was had by all, and many thanks to Myles for pulling the event together.
Here are the results of the audience ratings in terms of favorite demo:
