Web widget provider JS-Kit has been doing a lot of growing up since starting as a simple commenting widget, founder Lev Walkin’s pet project in his off hours. Since then, that single widget has grown into a company with the addition of CEO Kris Loux…

It’s always been a “tough proposition” to sell an outsourced solution, at least in areas (like web services) where this tactic is relatively new. After all, there was once a time when outsourcing the data center or payroll seemed a “radical” idea. As you may have guessed, however, we believe that the historical trend in this area, as in so many others, will be toward focusing on the strategic “core” and sourcing the rest elsewhere.

There are certainly many companies who’s “core” involves their competitive expertise in designing, building and implementing community features that support their online presence. However, while most companies now appreciate the importance of the web as a crucial channel for their overall business, they also clearly understand that this does not make them technology companies. The question facing this “in play” market opportunity then becomes wether to build or buy? Answering it involves a full risk/reward assessment.

You rightly highlight one side of this equation; the “risk from depending on a web service.” On this front, JS-Kit is taking every measure possible to mitigate this risk, starting with our technology and our business model, which requires virtually no technical expertise to deploy, allows services to be up in minutes or hours (not weeks), and requires no long-term contracts. We are also building an external API which will allow our customers direct access to their data. For all but the most sophisticated sites JS-Kit’s current infrastructure (and we have much more in store) provides a level of data security and redundancy that they cannot, or won’t, provide for themselves.

But the stronger case for outsourcing actually lies on the other side of the equation.

Obviously, relative cost considerations are a huge factor here. Companies simply cannot compete cost-wise with a shared-service approach. Less appreciated, though, is the risk of not outsourcing. In-house solutions may mitigate data risk, but usually increase the risk that site features won’t keep pace with one’s competition. There is also the future issue of how and whether in-house solutions will provide the cross-site features that a shared platform can offer.

We believe that ultra-lightweight services of the sort we provide are the new building blocks for online applications. Most companies will build with them, but not build them. If we’re wrong, we’re wrong. If we’re right, our customers and investment partners will be deeply rewarded.

Be Well,

Khris Loux, CEO
JS-Kit

khris at js-kit.com

You can find JS-Kit Comment service on The Chronicle right here.

Jon

We just started to provide comment, review, and forum widgets at http://www.nuharbor.com as well, but we are trying to established a distributed social network for small business vendors and their customers.

In my previous post, I had said you are not a company. The issue was simple – if the business falls apart without you (ie single-employee situations), then that isn’t a company. It is more freelancing.
The same should apply to ‘companies&#8…

It sounds like a great service.
One which I am definitely going to check out.

Keep the widget services coming!

Kudos for JS-Kit! You should also check out Spotback. In addition to rating you can add related content recommendations, community features (who rated this) etc. They also have an extremely cool widget gallery and rating widget designer – you can create pretty cool stuff with it.

Greg.