The Widget Kings
Erick Schonfeld
27 comments »
Who rules the world of widgets? It is difficult to measure, but comScore takes a stab at it with a new ranking of widget providers as measured by viewing audience. The Widget Metrix data is from November 2007 and “measures independent objects that can be embedded or downloaded onto another site and can be used as a tool, have automatic content updates, or are interactive.”
In November, 148 million people in the U.S. saw a widget somewhere on the Web (compared to a total Web audience of 182 million, so 81 percent of all Web surfers in the U.S. saw a widget). Of that, MySpace widgets ruled the roost with a 32 percent penetration of the U.S. Internet audience, followed by Slide and Clearspring (at 22 percent each) and RockYou (at 18 percent). if you add Photobucket (16 percent) to MySpace, both are owned by News Corp., that brings the total reach of MySpace-owned widgets up to 46 percent. It seems like Meebo should be in there, with a reach of about 19 million, which would put it right after iGoogle. Who else is missing?
Update: WidgetBox claims 25 million monthly uniques for their widgets, but says they don’t all get counted by comScore because they use Javascript. Another problem with this list is that there might be double-counting. Clearspring, for instance, puts a tracking embed code in RockYou’s widgets. Like I said, these things are difficult to measure.
Update 2: Gigya chimes in, claiming 35 million uniques. And NewsGator says it has 23 million
Nice try comScore but you have missed the boat, yet again.
Oops my bad, I first read it as The Midget Kings. Sorry little people.
Widgets are dumb.
Erick,
I dont think you can add PhotoBucket’s penetration to MySpace and use the sum to assume combined penetration. There’s a HUGE amount of overlap there, and my gut tells me that the combined total would be only slightly higher than MySpace’s stated penetration.
I was surprised not to see WidgetBox on the list.
Congrats with your nice place on the Technorati Top 100 ‘Most Linked to’ Blogs
Strangely, widgets with business models is missing from this list.
You-Tube isn’t on the list either?
WTF are Clearspring “independent objects”? Their widgets get counted twice?
Some of these widgets must have business models, because they’re paying Akamai to provide content delivery services. Slide and RockYou are among Akamai’s fastest-growing customers:
http://www.datacenterknowledge.....econd.html
Akamai’s not cheap, either. They say they’re now delivering more than 1 million requests per second for social media sites
@ Rich Miller: There are a lot of sites out there paying more for content than they are taking in (look at Zillow and other real estate sites). It doesn’t mean they have any business model besides taking in VC money.
Userplane is missing.
MagNet is coming!!!
How about Last.fm’s widget?
What do they mean by Myspace Widgets? Where on the internet are there myspace widgets?
we use the plaxo contact import widget and works very well, I only can recommend to everybody
Shew, that list has some real stinkers. Unlike ours
GoodWidgets.com
*shameless plug
Project Playlist should be mentioned. We own domains #8 and #9 and have together would should be above photobucket.com
As far as I know, this is a pay-for-play product, which means if you don’t subscribe to the service, comScore doesn’t track your widget. I think that’s why some of the widgets are missing from the list.
What the poster means is that some users develop their OWN widgets and use the Clearspring platform to develop them, and some of the widgets are primarily developed by Clearspring (Such as the Cloverfield Widget)
Project Playlist should be mentioned. We own domains #8 and #9 and have together would should be above photobucket.com!!!