I wanted to make some new post series in Widgets Lab and a good way to break the ice after having covered much if not all of the big picture in the widget market is to do quick interviews to the CEO´s behind the companies . our theme is of course widget Startups and these quick interview will be focused in clearing up the story and profile of those companies.
MuseStorm
Founded all the way back in 2005 in Tel Avi, Israel. Musestorm is the perfect company to check out to understand how much the Market of Widgets have changed in less than 3 years. from being merely a javascript widget developer, to a widget developer and provider to now that is the widget startup with the fullest scope. they cover from the development, to the promotion, to the management, to the analytics. they provide a end to end all solution. and if someone disagrees with that. then at least i can be agreed that it is what they strongly AIM for.
The Modern Musestorm started with the so called “MuseStorm Engagement Platform” .not only talking about user engagement as the direct force that should connect development and delivery.
Or how they call it:
“Our technology advantage is the result of the MuseStorm Engagement Platform. Inside you’ll find not only the MuseStorm Widget Studio but also modules for Total Analytics and for Intelligent Delivery. The MuseStorm Engagement Platform is mature technology that has been tested on live deployments with agencies, brand marketers, and entertainment companies. The platform itself meets or exceeds enterprise standards for reliability and scalability. Agencies and brand marketers trust MuseStorm to run their campaigns based on widgets and social applications with an expected reach of 5 million to 100 million users.”
1.-Development Suite
A widget editor where to develop the widget
2.-Metrics
Management tools to wrap up the widget in tracking analytics
3.-High Spread Sharing
Capacity to port the widget developed to different platform without having to Redo any code.
Of course that the magic is in between those lines. it may not sound that impressive at this stage of 2008 but that is because now the other have also improved the offering to be at the same level.
: So you got a widget startup can do every thing for you:
= “A Widget Agency”
And that is what begs the questions:
"What is the difference?” , “why should i care?”
Ori Soen, Founder and CEO of MuseStorm
“Ori Soen founded MuseStorm in 2005. Apart from managing day-to-day operations, as CEO, he is focused on business development, sales, and building customer acceptance for MuseStorm as the professional way to widget. A serial entrepreneur, prior to co-founding MuseStorm, Mr. Soen held executive positions at Mercury Interactive before and after its acquisition by HP. Prior to that, he was involved in building two mobile companies: Followap (acquired by NeuStar) and MobileSpear. Ori holds degrees in Computer Science and Business from Hebrew University. A citizen of Israel, he now makes his home in Sunnyvale, CA with his wife and two daughters.”
Q&A
Avatar:
When Widgets Lab started to cover news about Musestorm back in 2006. musestorm direction was in close path to what now it is Widgetbox. What essentially changed while developing the company to divert from that and engage into making musestorm a "Widget Agency" instead?
Ori Soen:
Well, "widget agency" is how you characterize us … Starting in late 2006, it became apparent that the climate was changing and that companies without explicit business models were not going to succeed. At that point in time, we shifted from a company focused on consumers and their self-expression needs - in other words, a business to consumer play - to one that is focused on the needs of professional marketers - a business to business play. Our focus on marketers and agencies has been paying off.
A lot of the background in Musestorm core team is experience in the mobile world, starting with you. however musestorm didn’t tried to set into covering mobiles while it grew, and why start with the iphone?.
Ori:
Our extensive experience in the mobile space is exactly the reason why we haven’t invested heavily in mobile widgets before the iPhone. We are really focused on the user experience and until recently we did not believe mobile platforms provided the functionality we were looking for. iPhone has changed the game and will lead to a powerful revolution in mobile handset design and functionality - which is great.
We had more and more customers interested in support for the iPhone, so it was a natural step to extend the platform to support it.
It is obvious, that the Mobile web is the greener land to conquer. now that there are a lot of Widget Companies and where pretty much your only competition in the same level is Plusmo. is there any Road Map, even if tentative on what comes after the iphone for musestorm?.
Ori:
Generally, we plan to extend our iPhone support and are working on prototypes for a couple of other mobile platforms. Unfortunately as this space is competitive and other widget companies have the habit of copying everything we do, I can’t go into specifics. I can, however, tell you that we are listening carefully to our customers and what they want and are also working closely with mobile platform owners to rolls out some very cool functionality.
Plusmo, by the way, is focused on consumers while we are focused on marketers, agencies and entertainment companies, so we really don’t consider them competitors.
We already know that the Desktop is blurring with the web thanks to the new RIA scenarios. while Musestorm is not focused into High End Widgets. what is your posture on the possible outcomes of RIA Widgets?
Ori:
We are keeping a close eye on both Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, the two technologies that are leading the charge of “blurring the web and the desktop.” You have to keep in mind that both technologies require users to download a plug-in and are not commonplace today. So while they hold a lot of promise, it’s still going to be a while before these technologies have mass reach.
Widget Metrics is what has been powering the whole push of Widget Advertising and Marketing that really made Widgets truly stand out the past year. the combinations of those 3 elements and how to manage them is part of the dilemma widgets now face. how musestorm helps in this and how does this compare to gigya and the new clearspring initiatives?
Ori:
Great question. Let me see if I can drill down more and focus in on what you’re really asking. Today, I distinguish between widgets as part of a distributed branding strategy and widgets which are yet-another-vehicle-for advertising. As I suspect you can tell, I don’t believe that widgets as YAVF advertising are very compelling unless or until you build a widget that has compelling functionality you can’t get elsewhere on the web. In other words, make your widget a mini-application or provide exclusive content and then and only then can you use that widget as a carrier for advertising. Most of the time, it makes more sense to craft your widget around the brand assets you already have, but do so in a way that your consumer will find engaging. The only way to figure out whether your consumer is engaging with the content inside the widget is to get out of what I call "black box" mode and understand how consumers are engaging with the various parts of your widget, piece by piece. This is where MuseStorm excels.
Our platform - the MuseStorm Engagement Platform - was built from the ground up to give professional marketers the power to see into the guts of the widget and understand exactly how consumers are engaging with the widget, what content turns them on, what content turns them off, to trend that data over time. Clients like CBS Mobile/CBS Interactive are using this analytics that we provide to manage their widgets to maximize the viral velocity of their campaigns. They can immediately tell when a particular video is starting to wear out and know when it’s time to introduce a new episode. This is powerful stuff and enables customers to essentially establish an ongoing relationship with the consumer through the widget.
In short, MuseStorm believes that widget analytics, widget-based marketing, and campaign management are intertwined. We empower our clients to understand what’s going on inside the widget and to iterate very quickly so as to optimize results in real time.
I had a question/opinion in the comments in a previous musestorm post for you, that would be interesting to know your take on. even if Marcia already had a go at it:
"honestly, would like to hear your take from a cost/benefit perspective.
I know its difficult to comparatively review these platforms,
but who are they really geared towards?
No one I know wants to use utilities like sprout which try to cannibalize
good development, it offends larger clients and agencies and puts a really
impersonal message out there.
MuseStorm is very interesting in terms of self publishing
(tested beta 2 days ago) for those who are just testing the waters,
in very short campaigns — really lacks scalability due to limits of their
platform.
Maybe this is a fundamental platform argument.. "
Widget Platforms are geared towards professional marketers who need to field multiple widget-based campaigns. The cost/benefit derives from both time and money saved.
Time - because the companies we work with can create widgets and social applications more quickly using a platform than they can by building each widget as a "one off."
Money - because of what you get with a platform - analytics, drag-and-drop components, cross-platform implementation and support. When you spend money on a platform, you do not need to hire outside developers to do the following:
- build custom analytics and multiple report sets and then evolve those analytics overtime to keep up with changes in the market
- build back-end functionality necessary to power drag-and-drop components such as comments. For example, MuseStorm provides a component that allows consumers to comment within a widget or social application. On the back end, we do moderation and language filtering … functionality our customers would have to invest in custom programming. There are numerous examples like this.
- integration into each and every social networking or mobile platform. For example, to develop a true Facebook application, you need to hire programmers skilled in FBML. We take care of this for our customers, enabling them to focus their time and money on the creative work product versus on the technology heavy lifting.
In terms of our business model, we agree that Sprout and some of the other low-end competitors probably will not make it, in the sense that they are trying to cannibalize what agencies already offer.
In terms of making tools available for consumers as opposed to companies, what one commenter referred to as "tools for self publishing" - that’s not our focus. The only tool we make available on a free or trial basis is for the iPhone, to develop a widget for this platform ONLY. We did this for a very specific reason … which is to give professional marketers an opportunity to go hands-on with the MuseStorm Engagement Platform in a fast and easy way. We’re not certain if this is an initiative we want or need to continue with because the message is confusing - we’re not in the consumer business and we don’t want to confuse the waters by making offers that might be construed in a way that suggests we are.
Just 6 months ago, explaining what Musestorm did was a lot easier than it is now and there was no Gigya or Sprout visible in the scene either. Many seem confused by the latest widget companies, so i want you to take the opportunity to clear out what are the differences of musestorm with the rest?
Ori:
What makes us different and better than our competition is four simple things:
Widgets that go more places for maximum reach.
Cross-Platform Widgets. With MuseStorm, agencies and marketers can create a widget once and then morph that widget across platforms (including true Facebook application) as needed to maximize your reach and the overall performance of your viral marketing campaign. In contrast, ClearSpring, Gigya and Sprout only support Flash-based widgets.
Accountability with detailed reporting on all touchpoints.
Engagement Matters. Go beyond distribution metrics and understand how people are interacting with your widget or social application. Essential to ensure your campaign reaches viral velocity and to avoid wear out. With other solutions you have to actually program your own interaction events tracking.
Convenience + Control right down to the pixel.
MuseStorm Widget Studio is a complete production environment. The environment looks and feels a lot like PowerPoint and is designed to give you complete, pixel-perfect control over how your widget looks, feels, and behaves. All from the privacy and convenience of your desktop, 24 x 7.
Proven by blue-chip marketers.
Since 2005, MuseStorm has been partnering with brands like CBS Mobile, DefJam Recording, Disturbing tha Peace records, Island Records, Simon & Schuster and many agencies. Companies choose MuseStorm to handle all the technology heavy lifting involved in producing, managing, analyzing, and delivering widgets to viral- and social-networking environments.
If constant change is a landmark of the technology sector. Widgets should be the niche in the web that has changed the most. from being in the background, from being a mere Aid or decoration to being true utilities, services and sources of revenue.
The fragmentation of the business of Widgets is already very visible and that is supposed to be where you guys come into. why do any developer or media outlet should consider widgets?. what can they provide that you cannot find on other elements in the web?.
Ori:
Here at MuseStorm, we believe that widgets and social applications are the backbone of any marketers’ distributed branding strategy. As such, it’s not so much that widgets deliver "new functionality" you can’t get elsewhere - but the fact that widgets deliver that functionality where the target audience resides when online. The fact of the matter is that many people do not start or end their days staring at a Google start page or Yahoo’s home page any longer. They start and end their days on Facebook, MySpace, or on their iPhones or other mobile phone. That changes the marketing equation. Smart marketers know they have to bring the brand to where their customers are… which is what widgets and social applications do better than any other medium.
To finish up. what is the most exciting new development in widgets for you?. what do you see as the next big thing for widgets?
We love the new developments in the mobile space. iPhone, Google Android, Nokia initiatives, Yahoo! Mobile widgets, Opera mini widgets and more. The mobile widget space is going to explode and we are looking to be a major force there!
To learn more about MuseStorm and the MuseStorm Engagement Platform please go to our site at http://www.musestorm.com
Closing in
A little nice of perspective and context does not hurt anybody so i want to thank Ori Soen for the graciousness, This was our first edition of the “The Widget Interview” . something you should expect to read here at widgets lab on fairly regular schedule.
If you want to read some of the news highlights from newstorm covered before at WidgetsLab you only got to take a look at these:
http://www.musestorm.com
*If you would like to be profiled in The Widget Interview, just write to me and let me know*
Promote your auctions with simple animated slideshow widget.
This widget comes from classifiedflyerads.com and is a FREE part of their membership package.
There are two varieties of widget. One similar to the above widget for sidebars and a horizontal version that can be used for other locations such as headers or posts.
This is an iFrame coded widget and is completely customizable (code editing)
You can check out both widgets here.
There are many packaged and ready to use Silverlight Video players already out and you can even generate one from Expression Studio quite easily. but that is for basic video players. if you want something with more style, you have to build your own.
Or you could use a Open Source Video Player for Silverlight that will evolve and stay free and that you are also allowed to modify at ease to your use or add it to the use of all if you want to contribute to the project.
That is the premise behind Silverlight 2 Video Player. the video player is now fully featured and works like a charm under Silverlight 2.0. the style looks to be pretty much a reproduction of the Vimeo player that is so in Vogue (flickr video ripped off the design too). i agree with that. vimeo is the prettiest video player design out there to this day.
The SL2 video player is still under development since Silverlight 2 final is not out either but it can be used already. once Silverlight 2 fina hitsl. a version release should be out.
Silverlight 2 Video Player
via Tim Heuer (you can check a live example here too)
*Update*: A update is now out:
Silverster is a Silverlight powered Twitter Gadget that you can use in your blog and that can replace the minimalistic or overcomplicated options around and offer you a rather slick gadget that looks like a WPF or AIR app.
This Widget was developed by Emil Stoychev, and not only can you grab the Gadget code from the Silvester page for use but if you are interested in Silverlight, Emil also shows you exactly how it was made so you can make your own version of it if you can.
The name silvester came from tweety feline antagonist, silvester the cat. odd reference yet fitting for the play of words. funny name or not, Silvester is the most slick Silverlight Twitter gadget you will find right now, so that is worth a try.
Silvester: Silverlight Twitter Gadget
There are a lot of widgets for Twitter, and there are a lot of widgets for Flickr. but how about a Mashlet that combines the two of them into one?. specially designed for people that get bored easily. that is where TwitterFountain gets into the rescue. This Mashlet (mashup widget) can stream photos by tag from flickr so they can serve as a ever changing background for your Tweets. then just add your Twitter Username and voila. a almost insane burst of photos and tweets together in the same widget. another of those things that could only have came from the Dutch.
Fortunately you can control the crazyness with the widget controls to set the pace of your Photo and Tweet stream, choose the colors and also the size of the widget too. that makes it a cool and unique novelty widget. all of the controls are within the widget so anyone can use it and share it easily.
The Widget is in Flash so it can be placed pretty much everywhere but you will have to copy and paste the code by yourself.
TwitterFountain
Unless you have recently came back from a Orthodox Amish Community, you should know that there is a mission on mars and that something called the phoenix mars lander recently discovered Ice in mars. but that is not all what The Phoenix Mars Lander does. it knows how to repay the good money it cost by giving out constant reports via Twitter and serving Mars Weather news to you via Widgets.
So now you can have recent Weather Reports directly from mars and look at it thanks to a Widget.
Vista Sidebar Phoenix Mars Mission Weather Gadget
Direct Download Link for Vista Sidebar
Mac OS X Dashboard Phoenix Mars Mission Weather Widget
(identical to the one in Vista)
Direct Download Link for Mac Dashboard
iGoogle Phoenix Mars Mission Weather Gadget
Direct Install Link for iGoogle
A good novelty to add if you are a Space aficionado, Geek or just because the heck of it.
Phoenix Mars Mission Weather Widgets
via Windows Vista Blog
MeeMix is a Internet Radio Social Network that tries to go for pandora but ends being more of a Deezer like music social network. The last update pushes them away from trying to be pandora and instead go for imeem and ijigg. How so?. now you not only are able to create stations and produce your radio station for your liking but now the focus to share and recommend music has notably increased (imeem) and now if you are an artist you can create your custom radio station and MeeMix profile page. the advantage is that since the music was uploaded by you and is owned by you the radio station you can create has more feature than common created or visited MeeMix radio stations because they don`t require of any restrictions.
But the interesting part of being a artist in MeeMix compared to other places is that they are allowing to extend your personal brand to your blog and social networks via widgets. the widgets provide fan stats for your MeeMix Radio Station.
And also a approval rating widget to check out if people think your are cool. it should be more specific to the music. but what it is these days?.
you can also put a widget that shows your favorite MeeMix radio stations are in order to provide a point of identification for your visitors. it is more probable i would pay attention to your music if i see your like the same music and artist i like.
That is very interesting and a good example of Widget Marketing. i only wish MeeMix site would be better designed and the radio station widget player was not as candy fugly as it is and it would had a more “cooler” look.because if i had to rate their coolness in one of their own approval rating widgets, it would mark below 50% right now.. but the Widget marketing ideas are great. so it is worth a try and have a page there and in iJigg at the same time.
MeeMix
via MeeMix blog
Not to be outdone by Add To Any with their self adjusting widget update. ShareThis have updated their widget to offer support for more services in the “Post To” section. now you can also see HI5, Friendster, Orkut and Livejournal. but the real jewel of the update is the hint that they will be now supporting live count indicators for Social Bookmarking and Social Content Sharing sites. the fist to be supported is digg. so you will be able to see the times a link has been dugg. this is pretty much alike to what you can see in Feedburner with the FeedFlare indicators.
While these updates are welcome. these widgets are still a long way from the potential they could archive so it is plenty room for them to grow yet.
ShareThis!
via Mashable
Not content to be left out of the possible money to be made in Online Video Advertising. Ustream. the biggest video Lifecasting provider will now “try” (more like adopt from the top) Overlay advertisements with some of the most notorious or popular users in the service. pretty much the same that YouTube has been doing and what other are going to do in this space.
And calling them proper overlay ads would be wrong. they are going mix with the “live comment track” in the player and if you hover the advertisement in the video you will get another front overlay with offering. i have seen the ads already and while the execution is a no brainer. they got several problems to me:
These are not even on the level of youtube overlay banners. but the good news is that they got a good company behind the ads. YuMe. the same that will be providing help to Microsoft. so they should do fine. at the pace online video advertising is pushing i would say we should expect overlay ads in some capacity or execution on pretty much all mayor online video providers by the end of the year.
USTREAM
The last notable news with Splashcast was that they were entering MySpace App Platform and that they had raised money. after almost 3 months of being relatively mute. Splashcast is doing a overall update of the service but also offering something new. something that pretty sure was developed thanks to the money raised and maybe the why they got money. HyperLink Ads with supplementary overlay info indicators, etc.
Totally logical step considering the kind of clients splashcast gears to and a sign of the times in terms of video advertising evolution. everything is about overlays. but unlike others in the online video (and media) space, Splashcast hotspot is a in house solution. that gives it a better rate of success thanks to the inventory they have and the clients they got.
SplashCast
via Splashcast blog
RateItAll claims to be the site for consumer reviews about anything. they have a very cool widget. one of the best if not the best Rating Widget there is. not so much because it is the most evolved Widget or the prettiest widget around (as you can se,it is not). but because they got the best model around the widget service. you get half of whatever your widget and your reviews in the site get.
While RateItAll got a lean mean quality operation. it remained small until they got a big boost thanks to their MySpace App and now are on a faster growth pace.but it is worth of note that unlike other start ups they always were profitable.
I hope this round of funding means a Widget Revamp and more Widgets to come from them and not just a tuning of the company. in the meantime congrats to them. i report a lot on Widget Money lately but now it is not common to report it from the smaller operations.
Lawrence Coburn, CEO of RateItAll is also the guy behind the SexyWidget Blog. that besides Widgets Lab is one of the few Widgets Blogs worth reading. just don`t expect him to be as charismatic as me. that is of course… impossible. 
RateItAll
via Techcrunch
Voodoovox, of MyVox fame has entered an agreement to collaborate with WeMix. MyVox previously offered a MyVox WeMix widget to enable calling and recording something that could then be used in WeMix. now they want to take things further and allow a full integration so you can have a WeMix recording studio powered by VoodooVox and you can have automatic recordings done from a phone and they can served in wemix as soon as you want them to be.
Nifty idea and something akin to what AudioBloggers do (even if there are not many of those left) . but in this case strictly for song recording..
VoodoVox.
MyVox
via Mashable
Sims Carnival is a Flash Game Creator that allows you make simple games by allowing you to remake the set of games in the site. you can change images, customize the inner working of the games, etc. all by using a question based selection settings and by having easy to use modules in the game editor. it also allows for some drag and drop experiences that ensure that anyone can create a game.
The rationale of using the sims brand seems to be that these user created and sim carnival official games will be able to interact with The Sims franchise. details on that are yet unknown.
The best of this creator if you are not into the sims is that you can take your game with you. you can embed it in your blog and use it without having to worry about anything else.
If you are interested in the sims games, then it would be good for you to know that there is a $1000 dlls contest to make the best sims carnival game.
Sims Carnival
via TechCrunch
It is good to see Nvidia interested in offering Widgets. but it is even more interesting when they do contests for widget development. in this very specific case they are making a contest in the nzone website (nvidia zone) for SideShow Gadgets.
They want you to create the best SideShow gadget you can, and for that you can get a trip to nvidia NVISION event in California if you happen to be in the finalists. but if you win. you can get a Dell XPS 402 and your gadget will also be showcased in nvidia nzone site and of course it will get to be in Windows Live Gallery for people to download and use it.
Quite a hefty amount of prices for a sideshow gadget right?. so if you think it is worthy of your time. just head over to Nvidia contest page to have a look:
NVIDIA preface gadget development contest
Some ideas for good SideShow gadgets would be to make better SideShow Media player (with video support), a better Document Viewer for office, etc. but the point is that you get to do what you think it would be cool to have and also run for a prize while you are at it..
Widgets now finally got several forces pushing the way they must be managed now. there is a group of forces of interest behind them now and they have the form of Marketing, Advertising and Analytics.
Those are the things that aim to make monetization not only a reality. because that is something already archived. but to make monetization something common. be able to make widgets sustainable and generate as much revenue they can.
But now that everything of that is in place. lets forget about it.
How about mainstream acceptance?
That is even a issue now?. not at all i think that was the thing archived last year.if the surge of companies like slide and rockyou is not a mainstream acceptance of widgets. or the fact that now not having a widget for your service makes you look as unprepared.
if that are not powerful enough arguments that widgets have gone mainstream enough then we are wasting our time.
Lets move on.
How about ease of development’?
A point i think we will not only reach this year but even find ourselves in a glut of options.
Now you got lots of platforms and way to make widgets of all kinds and however you want them. now we got tools so evolved that you only need to drag and drop to build a widget or mash up services in order to make something in minutes if you want. something that just a year back would have taken you hrs or days.
Add API being something of an afterthought and we are in the right track.
We are getting there.next step.
What is left to do?
With the whole talk of widgets being the new website. something that would be a half truth, half lie over optimistic approach to widgets. one has to wonder: since when?.
We have not got there. that is not anywhere commonplace or something you can point at one widget in particulal and say “that widget got it all”.
How do we get somewhere around that point?
We get to that point with not only Portable Experiences but Self Sufficient Portable Experiences
1.-Leveling Up
As i see more and more solutions for easy development i get to see widget companies wanting to make casual experiences. kinda like in video games where you got the Wii. offering up mindless yet socially fun games without substance. that is good. but that kind of experiences while they can get more people to try them out. their expiration rate is shorter and the engagement is of less quality over time.
We need more power to make more engaging widgets. but more importantly. we need it because otherwise you cannot with have Self Sufficient Portable Experiences.
it don`t matters if you choose to use Ajax, or JavaFx or Flex or Silverlight. it is time for things to go down that path.
2.-Self Sufficient Portable Experiences
when i talk about SSPE. i talk about widgets that don`t need to lead the user to the mothership. to take the user anywhere but the place where they found the widget. be a friend Blog sidebar, a friend social network profile or a Blog post just like this one.
I.-High Spread Sharing
The option to share the widget inside a widget became common at the start of 2007 when it only offered a generic embed code the user had to grab and then somehow apply wherever they wanted to put the widget. that was plain “Sharing”.
Later in 2007 you would find other options inside the widget like “JavaScript or Flash”. Later Social Networks and Start pages reached their commodity status and it made sense to offer a way for the widget to be put in those social networks while making the process as frictionless as possible.
The use of “install links” became then common for Myspace and later other social networks, blogging platform and start pages. those options gave widgets “High Spread” to go viral, hence:
High Spread Sharing
With the coming of age of the mobile web and better widgets in the desktop as Vista Sidebar became the recognizable factor for widgets in the desktop. such form was also adopted by Yahoo Widget Engine and Google Desktop and now even Webtops. so i think the terms is suitable.
II.-Searchable
While not all widgets can use this. the most important ones and the ones we care about to reach higher level of engagement need it. be it a rss mini feed reader able to search feeds. a video game catalogue in a widget like Neoedge or Hulu allowing you to check out the Hulu video library from the same widget. that can go further. for music, feeds and services. having the widget serve as the not only a face to your service but as a middle man for it is something needed.
Another reason is because it expands the time a user will engage with the widget and gives the window of opportunity for a efficient monetization via advertising, promotional offerings or special sponsorships.
III.-Social Graph Enabled
Widget should not wait for the user to make up its mind and send a impersonal notification via e-mail. he should be able to have the same frictionless he has when using the High Spread Sharing panel in the widget. but how?. by allowing him to allow the widget to identify the user.
Once identified, the user can talk to others using the widget, send messages from the widget or allow the widget to send a notification written by the user in whatever method the user prefers: e-mail, microblog or instant messaging.
This is where the whole Inter connected relational information spheres theory enters. or as we call it now:
The Social Graph
This is of course the last stage in engagement because it needs things like Data Portability, Authentification Protocols Transparency and Lifestreaming collide into something coherent that widget makers can get to use.
But it is part of what the whole Google Social Graph and Lifestreaming Aggregators API should get into play.
3.-Making Good Widgets
Finally. the Holy Grail. making some good widgets while still being able to give the Widgets more power and make them easier and more useful.
Yeah. no fair. i know. but hey. who said it was going to be easy?.
Anyway. that is where i think Widget should go as fast as possible. being able to see a widget with all those traits in 2008 would be great. at least that is what i think.
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