What Can Widgets Do?

• Posted: Friday, February 08, 2008
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Facebook, Market Survey, Mobile Content, Mobile Widgets, Online Services

What the heck is a widget, or what is sometimes called a gadget, badge, module, capsule, snippet, plug-in, mini or flake?

Widgets are basically embedded code in an HTML page. And whatever you call them, they are popping up all over the Internet.

Since Facebook opened up to third-party applications in May 2007, nearly 15,000 applications have been developed. Overall, more than 100,000 developers are working on widgets and applications worldwide.

All the excitement aside, eMarketer estimates that US companies will spend only $40 million in 2008 to create, promote and distribute widgets, up from $15 million in 2007.

The figures do not include desktop widgets, which are downloaded and used by a single user. ”Despite the level of activity, questions about the future of widgets and applications persist,” says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, Web Widget and Applications: Destination Unknown, “Are they a fad or are they the future of Internet marketing?”

Concerns related to Web widgets and applications include “application burnout,” measurement difficulties, distribution challenges and deceptive techniques used by some widget developers to increase their installation rate.

But for every nay-sayer, widgets also have many proponents.

Read more - eMarketer

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