Widgets and Wrinkles

By Ian, on May 17th, 2007

I was delighted to attend the Chinwag Live event on widgets last night — perhaps especially since we’re having our own event on the topic next week, it was great to have the opportunity to hear what people are thinking on the subject. The event was extremely well attended and there was some good discussion, especially, as always, after the main panel had finished.

Stand-out quote for me was from a member of the audience, having heard how brands are using widgets as a marketing tool, who said, “err… aren’t these things just a way to get people to go back to your main site?” Nothing new under the sun, Horatio.

Another very interesting reference was to this post on Ventureblog.com by David Hornik about the ‘widget economy’, where the point is made that some widgets have symbiotic relationships with their hosts, while others are parasites. And that this is a challenge to the development of the idea of widgets as a way to create a business:

That challenge is a byproduct of their precarious relationship with the “host” services to which they attach. To the extent those relationships are symbiotic, the combined organism will thrive. However, to the extent those relationships are, in fact, parasitic, the host will need to shed the parasite in the name of survival.

Parasitic widgets are basically out to get you to go to another site. Something that popped up news headlines for example, which took you to a news site when you clicked on them rather than displaying more information in situ.

Symbiotic widgets enhance the site they’re on — things like YouTube videos, maybe something that shows your latest flickr photos, or a music player. Google Adsense for Content is parasitic in the sense that it aims to take people elsewhere, but symbiotic in that it gives a kickback to the site owner if it manages to do that.

Parasitic widgets sometimes seem like the sensible way to make money from the widget model. A media owner flashing up teasers from the site owner’s publication of choice isn’t really giving anything away. It seems like all-win for them. But then again, as a site owner, are you really going to put something up that purely serves as a distraction from your own content? I’d suggest not. Certainly, if you were MySpace, you’d be encouraging widgets that help users make their profile page better, and blocking widgets that send users out of the system. The symbiotic route is a slower burn, but a more secure model.

So in a way, the widget business is a miniaturised version what’s going on with marketing in general over the last ten years. That we’re moving away from a culture in which brands could simply expect to grab eyeballs, attention, custom by virtue of simply being brands to a culture of permission marketing. Where brands realise they’ve got to give in order to receive. The more enlightened brands are going to be saying, “right, we’ll give you this cool doodad that lets you embed exclusive, useful, usable content on your site. Because then we’re helping you and helping your readers. And then there’s a bit more chance that you’ll come back to us when you’re looking for more cool stuff.”

I’ll put the wrinkles bit in a separate post.