ComScore has announced Widget Metrix, a new service to track the usage of widgets on web sites and blogs. What are widgets? I have several examples of widgets on my blog; things like Lijit (search), MyBlogLog (readers photos), Feedburner (subscriptions) , Sitemeter (traffic stats), and Criteo (blogroll). Other examples are things like stock tickers, news feeds, and of course, Google's AdSense widget which delivers ads to web sites and blogs. See my earlier post on ClearSpring for more background on widgets.
The Wall Street Journal has a story on the widget economy and produced this graphic of the ComScore results.
I am very surprised at the initial measurement results. I would have guessed Photobucket to be the most used widget given its enormous usage on MySpace. Other surprises...YouTube doesn't show up in the top 10 but Brightcove does? Congrats to my friend Jeremy Allaire from Brightcove registering 16.9 million unique visitors. Impressive!
My guess is that the stats are incomplete because ComScore only tracks flash based widgets. See this definition of widgets from ComScore.
The current universe of widgets is defined as embedded flash (.swf) objects. The comScore Widget Metrix service will evolve in its tracking of widget file types as the market dynamics and content delivery systems change. The report currently focuses on the individual widgets, and not the platforms that deliver them. Desktop widgets are also not included.
Widgets are growing in popularity. Companies like Clearspring have figured out how to deliver a widget platform that leaves control of the content and monetization in the hands of the content owners, but still allow users to freely use the widget anywhere they want. Viral growth while still maintaining some control. Sounds like a winner to me.
