Media Widgetised chinwag notes

These are my notes from the Media Widgetised event last night at the Pitcher and Piano Slug and Lettuce in Wardour Street.

Who was there?

Widgets are certainly a hot topic given the attendance at last night's event. There was a genuine mixture of the big brands, ad agencies, publishers and technology people wanting to talk widgets. We must be onto a good thing here.

That definition problem again

No convincing explanation or definition yet of what a Widget actually is. Many people tried and fell at the first hurdle. A 'tear off for the web?' the 'bumper stickers of the internet?' 'a way to deliver content and services somewhere other than your own website'. Anyone got a  definition that really works?

Just like with RSS, if we cant explain to real users what a widget is in simple language it will no doubt hold development back. Although from a show of hands at the event 30% to 50% had installed a widget I doubt this would hold true in the real world outside the Web 2.0 echo chamber.

How do we make money from Widgets?

Plenty of discussion around this one. Some good examples from big brands playing in the widget space like Ryanair and Ebay.  Of course Google adsense was quoted as the best yet. A nice example of topshop creating MySpace profiles for each retail outlet. Other widget or mobile businesses that are taking off like Widsets, Snapvine and slide.

Widgets and Mobile

Some discussion on whether Widgets were the application to bring together mobile and the web. Seems some sort of conflict here between flexibility for the user and widget maker and the network providers wanting to contol content delivery. Widset are up to 1 million users in the first 6 months

How can advertisers use widgets?

A traffic driver. A route to fullfilment Getting your content / brand onto other sites like MySpace etc. The consensus seemed to be that the widget must be well thought out, meet the needs of the user and respect their privacy. That makes sense but if you follow these rules a good marketing tool, some comparisons made between widgets and affiliate / direct marketing.

So early days but the view was that widgetisation / decentralisation of the web is the way things are going, so businesses need to find a way to work in this space.