Comments on: Investors Take a Stroll with Widgets

By: Widget Me This - GigaOM

Widget Me This - GigaOM — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:00:31 +0000

[...] around MySpace, then Facebook opened its APIs and the widget makers rushed into a promised land of adoption and media coverage. But as social networks and widget platforms, such as Clearspring, begin to explore monetization [...]

By: Greatest Internet Phenomenons of 2007: Widgets : Point Oh!

Greatest Internet Phenomenons of 2007: Widgets : Point Oh! — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:47:38 +0000

[...] I might not call it the Year of the Widget, like GigaOm, 2007 was definitely the year when Internet junkies seemed to finally reach consensus on a word [...]

By: Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » Final month of 2007 blogging

Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » Final month of 2007 blogging — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 07:35:46 +0000

[...] Speaking of widgets, I believe the investment in Clearspring was larger. [...]

By: 2008: The Year of LinkedIn? - GigaOM

2008: The Year of LinkedIn? - GigaOM — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:44:48 +0000

[...] time to start speculating about what will be hot and what will be not in 2008. After all, 2007 was not the Year of the Widget, despite what Newsweek predicted. If anything, it was the Year of Facebook, as the social [...]

By: Liz Gannes

Liz Gannes — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:46:17 +0000

Nice post, Anne!

By: Anne Zelenka

Anne Zelenka — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:03:02 +0000

Patrick, wish I had seen your posts beforehand, my Google searches missed them. Would have saved me some work and also provided really good background and insight. Thanks for sharing the links.

By: Widgify » Blog Archive » Widgets Make a Splash

Widgify » Blog Archive » Widgets Make a Splash — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:52:41 +0000

[...] Om, Lawrence, and Nick also have some good stuff following up on this article that discusses some of the leading platforms and players in the space. Much to do as the space evolves. [...]

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:27:02 +0000

I wrote a blog entry a while back breaking the widget industry (if there is such a thing) into 5 segments, then updated my definitions and the segmentation graphic a bit later. I also wrote a summary of investments that I knew of at the time back in April. Guess I should keep updating my blog!

By: Anne Zelenka

Anne Zelenka — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:33:20 +0000

@lawrence: thanks! That's a great reference for funding of widget companies.

@Patrick: good point, supplying widgets is mostly not capital-intensive.

@Aaron: Facebook isn't a pure-play widget platform. Many people use it mostly for the social networking capabilities. Distinguishing platforms as user vs. developer is helpful as Andrew said. There are other hybrids like the Ajax start pages. I left out widget "hosts" here though like the start pages, Facebook, Blogger, MySpace, etc.

@Mike: thanks for the info on SplashCast and on how widget companies are making money. I think that might make a good topic for a later article.

By: Mike Berkley

Mike Berkley — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 03:26:12 +0000

Thanks, Anne, for the post. There are some good examples of how widget companies are making money. RockYou, for instance, is monetizing their vast network of widgets on Facebook by selling distribution to other application developers (making them truly more a platform play than a supplier). Clearspring and Gigya are following suit, though their networks are not as vast as RockYou's.

The widget distribution business model, of course, is ultimately dependent on a buyer (a 3rd-party widget supplier) who can turn around and resell that distribution at a higher price. Generally speaking, the buyer needs to sell the distribution to either an advertiser or a client who derives economic value from the widget itself. This is a critical piece, otherwise the distribution model comes crashing down.

SplashCast is one widget provider that fills this critical role in the widget ecosystem. Partnering with premium content owners like Sony BMG (Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Chris Brown, T-Pain, etc), Universal Music Group, MTV, and star athletes like NBA MVP Dwyane Wade, SplashCast can sell premium widgets to advertisers, guarantee distribution (either organic or paid), rev share with the content partner, and keep a healthy margin.

SplashCast, by the way, has raised $1.8M to date.

Cheers, Mike

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 03:18:10 +0000

It might help to distinguish between two types of platform. A developer platform, such as Clearspring, and a user platform, such as Blogger. Facebook has built each type of platform and bolted them together within its walled garden. So it doesn't belong on a list of pure play widget developer platforms, or on Anna's list of pure plays in widgeting.

By: Aaron Huslage

Aaron Huslage — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:43:31 +0000

I question the fact that you left out Facebook, et al. Just because a company calls their platform an "Application Platform" doesn't make it so. They are fundamentally the same as all of the widget platforms you've listed here. You can add $500m to that list, as far as I'm concerned.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:02:36 +0000

It may also be in part due to the fact that the development and distribution of widgets is extremely cost efficient. The widgets themselves are not much more than AJAX, Flash or other user interfaces accessing existing content on the Internet through APIs, web services, or straight up Javascript, HTML, CSS, etc. Huge experienced developer community for that type of work. Plus the content owners carry much of the cost of infrastructure. And some of the key elements of making widgets work like advertising, analytics, etc., can be relatively easy to recreate for widgets since good solutions already exist for the web.

This cost efficiency is part of what makes widgets a viable business, and makes starting companies on lower capitalization more likely. The ability for users to customize their own digital experiences is what drives user adoption.

By: lawrence

lawrence — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:55:03 +0000

Nice summary Anne. Here’s a breakdown of which VC firms are doing the funding of which widgets:

http://www.sexywidget.com/my_weblog/2007/07/so-who-is-fundi.html