SOMEWHAT FRANK

AOL Gets Goowy, Acquires Widget Startup

AOL has just announced the acquisition of Goowy Media, a San Diego-based Flash startpage, widget and desktop application startup. One of Goowy's bi-products is yourminis a slick startpage that I previously reviewed and named one of the best beta products of 2006. It is pretty rad.

Goowy's widgets can be distributed to just about any page or social network on the Web (as shown below) which is comparable to offerings by ClearSpring, Widgetbox and Gigya, which have also been getting buzz in the widget advertising space. These distribution capabilities will come in handy on myAOL as well as helping to syndicate AOL network content. Goowy also offers widget metrics in a dashboard that closely resembles the feed metrics dashboard of FeedBurner which was acquired by Google for $150 million.

Widgets Going Wild on Facebook, Freewebs & Yourminis

Widgets are hot. Widgets are sexy. Widgets, widgets, widgets. I previously have covered the widget craze but widgets now have a few new promoters.

With the Facebook open platform announcement last week there have been lots of new widgets and applications added to Facebook each day. Personally, I have already added Flickr, Slide and Twitter widgets to my Facebook profile. Nick O'Neill, who helped bring TECH cocktail to DC, decided to launch a new blog called All Facebook which will be covering these widget updates and other Facebook news, so you might want to check it out.

Freewebs, the Silver Springs, Maryland-based company that offers an open web personal publishing platform, has added a Widget Bank to their catalog of website building tools. The Freewebs Widget Bank gives members access to thousands of widgets that can be embedded directly onto a web site. Widgets can be added into Freewebs sites without having to copy, cut or paste code. Widget Bank will constantly update its extensive collection and include games, clocks, RSS feed readers, maps, video players and much more.  Freewebs has created its own widgets but has also reached to third party sites like YouTube, Widgetbox, RockYou, Miniclip, Gizmoz and others.

Yourminis has also taken an interesting approach which I have previously covered but wanted to reiterate. Basically, they are offering widgets that work on your home page, are snaggable for your blog or web site and extendable to your desktop. It is a widget trifecta!

Here are a couple of other blogs that are good widget resources:

Widgify - by Hooman Radfer of the widget marketplace Clearspring
SexyWidget - by Lawrence Coburn of distributed rating RateItAll.com
Widgets Labs - by Derek Anderson
StickiWidgets 

The web is definitely widgetizing. Can you dig it?

Widgets, Modules & Marketing, Breakthrough Ideas of 2007, Google Attention Tracking & Web 2.0 Mainstream

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 02.04.07

First things first, today is Super Bowl XLI and I am from Chicago which means I will be rooting on the Bears today. The photo above shows the Merchandise Mart in Chicago supporting the team by shining the team's orange and blue colors. Go Bears!

Desktop Modules Help To Personalize Data, Cut Through Clutter
Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal dissects the various personalized start page options. He is a Netvibes user but critiques all the other options as well and even hints at a new version of My Yahoo coming soon.

Widget Marketing
Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog explains how widgets are a great way to help market your site or blog. He even shows off his recent Widgetbox creation.

Desktop Widgets 101
Mike Arrington takes a moment to point out the differences between desktop and web widgets. Widgets are sexy in 2007 and so I would highly recommend you know what they are.

The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas for 2007
Harvard Business Review's annual survey of emerging ideas considers how nanotechnology will affect commerce, what role hope plays in leadership, and why, in an age that practically enshrines accountability, we need to beware of “accountabalism.”

del.icio.us: overdue new year's resolutions
del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site, has grown to 1.5 million users. This article hints at upcoming integration with Yahoo, its parent company, and user interface updates.

Is Google building the Attention Economy?
Vecosys expresses view on the attention movement and explains Google's recent launch of new products (i.e. Google Reader Trends and Google Bookmark and Search History) that have been leveraging and surfacing attention data.

Mainstream Media Usage of Web 2.0 Services is Increasing
Has mainstream media recognized 'web 2.0'? This article by Read/Write Web takes a closer look at mainstream media adoption of 'web 2.0.'

News Search + Personalization + Social Media = Wikio
Wikio blends news search and personalization in a Digg-like layout. It also offers search and customization options to make it easy to get to items you might like.

Geeks love * tshirts for Sale
I love tee shirts that offer a cool design and this one was created by Cindy Li which fits the bill.

Widgets Live! Everywhere

Widgets Live! was a fabulous day of festivities (November 6, 2006) which attracted the thought leaders of the web, mobile and gadget industries to discuss one of the hottest topics, widgets. Companies like AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, Adobe all had representatives contributing details on its latest widget endeavors. A number of startups like FeedBurner, Six Apart, Wordpress and Photobucket contributed to the conversation.  While widget startups like Widgetbox, Clearspring and Snipperoo explained the way they are approaching widgets. The event was appropriately kicked off by an insightful keynote address by Arlo Rose, the founder of Konfabulator, a desktop widget suite that has often linked to the recent widget craze.

I decided not to live blog the event as I have done in the past with conferences like Supernova and Syndicate but AOL colleague Stephanie Bergman and Liz Gannes of GigaOm did. While John Panzer was on the Blog Sidebar Widget panel representing AOL and blogged about it here. James Ward explained how Adobe's Flex could be used for some slick widgetry. The folks at Snipperoo also generated some live blogging coverage and ProgrammableWeb.com did a wrap-up. I took some photos that can be found here.

There were also number of companies that used Widget Live! as a launching pad for announcements:

• AOL launched a revamped development site at: dev.aol.com
• Fox launched Spring Widgets which combines web and desktop widget functionality into one product
• FeedBurner announced the partnership with Fox Interactive Media to help control the display of widgets in the Spring Widgets product
• NVIDIA acquired PortalPlayer
• Freewebs announced Mooglets a web widget dashboard
• Goowy unleashed yourminis a slick flash-based web dashboard
• Clearspring launched a revamped widget marketplace
• Netvibes founder and ceo Tariq Krim gave insight into the growth of the personal homepage and communicated plans at expand the site to be localized in60 countries
• The virtual chumby was introduced as the actual chumby (see what is a chumby?) has not yet been released for purchase

Additionally there were event wrap-ups by Niall Kennedy, Emily Chang and Mike Jones who hinted at the level of innovation in saying:

“ Om + Niall's Widgets conference was good today - potentially even more forward thinking than tomorrows Web 2.0 conference.”

If having a conference dedicated to widgets wasn't enough to highlight all that is widgety, Steve Rubel reports that the W3C has introduced a draft proposal for a new Widget standard. The most interesting section of the proposal is the Widget autodiscovery section which, similar to feed autodiscovery, enables a webpage to tell a browser and other applications if  there is a widget associated with the page. I am glad to see the W3C taking a crack at standardizing widgets  asking for input from the widget generating community.