Whither the widget?
Saturday, August 11th, 2007When RSS first became a popular distribution mechanism for content, I was concerned. I understand the value of RSS to the customer, afterall I subscribe to more than 30 different feeds personally. But, I had to wonder what RSS was doing to my site’s traffic. If a consumer could get my headlines in her feed reader, why bother to come to my site?
I rationalized the inclusion of RSS on the sites I managed  (nashuatelegraph.com, poconorecord.com and timesleader.com respectively) by telling myself and others that giving the consumer what the consumer wants will always help us win. Secretly, I worried that we were giving away the store.
Now, enter widgets – small pieces of code that essentially enable consumers to drag and drop content and functionality on their own blogs, Facebook profiles, MySpace page or whereever they want. Pretty cool, eh? I love them and wish I could develop widgets myself, but again I’m left wondering what’s in it for my site if I enable consumers to, say, watch my videos on their blog. I get the branding lift, but do I get the traffic?
What’s in it for The Washington Post who built The Compass for Facebook users? Does the widget, which lets you compare your political leanings with your friends (I’m very conservative), drive traffic to washingtonpost.com?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I think it’s important to be honest about the problems as well as excited about the opportunities.
Widget Finder: This week’s Fortune Magazine has an article about slide.com, another photo widget.