Widget Platforms

There are many different widget platforms and ways for people to discover widgets. Below you’ll find an overview of some of the more popular widget classifications and platforms.

Personal Home Pages:

When a widget is placed on a personal home page it means that only the user or owner of that home page can see or interact with it. These are extremely popular right now. For example, Google’s personalized homepage has been used by over 100 million people, with billions of widget views a month. Personal home pages are different than other places that display widgets because they are only displaying the widget to one person. These pages are not seen by the public, only the owner. Therefore, there is no need to heavily brand these widgets or offer options like “Grab this Widget” because the owner already has this and is the only one who can see the widget. Widgets that do well on personal home pages tend to be simple and function-based. The over-branding of a widget can actually hurt a widget’s success.

Let’s look at a couple of personal homepages more closely…

iGoogle

iGoogle is Google’s personalized home page. Its main feature is that it allows users to collect and display widgets. Google refers to their widgets as “gadgets” and they display information like news, games, photos, weather, and more. Each Google user can choose their own gadgets and arrange them on their page in any order they like.

The place where users find these gadgets is the Google gadget directory.

The Google gadget directory has tens of thousands of gadgets. If a user likes cats, then they can search for “cats” in the directory and be presented with cat gadgets of all sizes and varieties. Gadgets are ranked in the directory algorithmically by search term relevance.

NetVibes

Netvibes is another example of a personal home page, which offers users many of the features described above.

Netvibes widgets are useful to have in many ways. One of the main reasons that NetVibes is a great place to share your widget is because the code of the widget is actually multi-functional for you.

Netvibe widgets are made using the Universal Widget API (UWA). This means that once made, these widgets can be displayed in many different places, in many different forms.

Public Profile Pages:

Facebook and MySpace are examples of public profiles. These are different from personal home pages in a very important way. Public profiles can be seen by anyone, which means there is opportunity for viral spread of your widget. Here is where a “Grab this Widget” option may be more appropriate. By designing a widget specifically for public profiles you can increase the likelihood of others grabbing it.

Facebook

Facebook is known for its enormous potential and usage of widgets (which they call “applications”). Facebook has changed many things about how applications work with users’ profile pages, which has unfortunately significantly decreased the “viral” ability to spread an application.

However, even with these changes, Facebook is one of the most popular social networks in the world. As such, it often makes sense to be represented there.

Facebook application development is more expensive than other widget development because it uses a proprietary language which requires, in many instances, a developer to create an application from start to finish in this language.

MySpace

MySpace was once thought as a playground for thirteen year olds but it is no longer such. Today, one can find MySpace pages for several Fortune 1000 companies. This platform has a wide appeal and massive usage numbers.

Creating a MySpace widget can often be done with a slight alteration of existing widget code. They are a member of Open Social which is, in part, a language designed to be implemented all over the Web on several different platforms. For example, an Open Social application that works on iGoogle will also work on MySpace with very little altering.

Widget Directories / Viral Installer Platforms

Some widget platforms are simply places where widget can be made and where widgets can be found. Perhaps the most popular of such platforms is WidgetBox.

WidgetBox

Widgetbox is becoming the largest directory of widgets on the Web, also offering services in widget promotion and creation. Because of the popularity of this platform, it is recommended to always have a Widgetbox version of your widget.

This website has major SEO value and if you submit your widget there, you may be surprised when within a week your widget is in the top 10 or 20 results of Google for terms found in the widget’s title. Widgetbox also offers a viral installer. Viral installers are the little button that says “Get this Widget” and then allows a user to install that widget to several platforms.

Ready to draw traffic with widgets? Contact us.