Widgetbox Hits 100m Uniques

Widgetbox recently hit an important milestone - 100m monthly uniques as measured by Quantcast.

To put 100m into perspective, Widgetbox is now the web's 19th largest network.

It is tremendously rewarding to work on a technology platform that touches tens of millions of people a month, and Widgetbox's continued growth is huge validation that the atomization of the web and the rise of widgets as a valuable medium for content syndication, web page construction, and personalization continues apace.

In addition, Widgetbox's focus on self-service solutions and the freemium model is driving tremendous growth in customer acquisition as customers - prosumer, SMB, and enterprise - use the Widgetbox platform to widgetize, distribute, and measure their content.

Widgetbox Turns 3

Today, Widgetbox turns three.

On April 1, 2006, Ed Anuff, Dean Moses, and Giles Goodwin formally started Widgetbox.

Here is a copy, thanks to archive.org, of the first front door.

The site promised to "change how the world thinks about syndicating functionality on the web."

And so it has!

Since launch, Widgetbox has helped tens of thousands of publishers syndicate their content, service, and applications via widget technology. The company continues to ride the web widget syndication wave and we just finished our most successful month ever - serving over 740m widgets to over 89 million uniques.

Importantly, in addition to traffic, Widgetbox just reached an impressive customer milestone with over 400 paying customers.

Happy Birthday Widgetbox.

Interview with MIS Financial Review

During my time in Sydney, I spent some time with Julian Bajkowski, a reporter with MIS Financial Review, which covers the Australian IT market.

The article he wrote on our talk and Widgetbox can be found here.

Thanks to Julian.

Widgetbox and Atlassian

Widgetbox and Atlassian just announced an integration that allows Confluence users to add Widgetbox widgets - over 120,000 - to their wiki.

Venturebeat covered the story here.

Atlassian is one of enterprise software's real success stories with over 14,000 customers in 109 countries. Confluence is their flagship wiki product and the following video illustrates how Confluence users can add relevant widgets to their project pages. Other Atlassian products include Jira, Fisheye, Bamboo, and Clover.

Introducing Blidget Pro

Widgetbox just released Blidget Pro: the next generation of our successful Blidget tool and our first subscription-based service.

The Blidget Pro is a far more powerful version of the Blidget - a tool that has converted nearly 100,000 blogs into widgets and served 2.3 billion impressions since its initial launch in 2007.

The Blidget Pro represents a major innovation and is the easiest, fastest way to turn all your feed-based content (videos, images, tweets, posts...) into dynamic, branded widgets.

Since launch, Widgetbox has served over 6.5 billion widgets and widgets are proving to be a very valuable way for publishers and developers to to reach new users across the web. However, to date, many publishers and developers have found the high cost of custom creative a friction in leveraging widgets. Priced at $3.99 per month, Blidget Pro is designed to be the self-service, no coding required solution of choice for those looking to widgetize their content assets.

The best way to appreciate the product is to see a few in action - all made using the solution.

Simpsons on Hulu - media company example with in-widget video playback
AMZN Top Sellers - e-commerce example
NextTag Affiliate Example - using widgets to sell phones and phone accessories
Mahalo Widget - publisher example with multiple tabs
Company Example - how to aggregate training videos, RSS feeds, etc
Blogger Example




Features:
- Easily create viral, branded widgets without any code
- Custom header, footer and/or body assets (jpg, gif, swf, png)
- Tab integration for multiple feeds and formats
- In-widget video integration for YouTube, Hulu and Vimeo (more coming soon)
- New visual layouts (slideshow, brick-mode, headlines with images)
- Custom widget linking (header, footer and/or body)
- Premium promotion on Widgetbox.com



To give the system a try, please visit the site.

Best and please let us know your feedback!

Announcing the Widgetbox Blog Network

I am excited to announce the launch of the Widgetbox Blog Network.

The Widgetbox Blog Network connects bloggers across 29 channels (from art to celebrities to music to politics) using a single widget that dynamically showcases content across all of the blogs in that channel. You’ll notice, for instance, that I’ve joined the Tech News Channel and placed the widget in the top right of my blog template. On each page view, new blog posts are dynamically presented from other bloggers also in the Tech News Channel - and likewise, my blog posts appear on their pages… effectively driving highly relevant traffic across the network and taking advantage of Widgetbox’s large audience / community.



Why are we launching a blog network? Simple, at Widgetbox, bloggers and blogs are the core of our community and the new Blog Network:

- Widgetbox has widgets on over 250,000 unique blogs
- Blidgets (blogs we help turn into widgets) have been served over 1.5 BILLION (!) times
- Widgetbox now reaches over 65 million unique each month (verified by Quantcast)



You will also notice that the widget is customized for my blog – showing a badge of my blog and its rank within the Channel (I’m #8 - need to blog more).

Joining is easy:

1. Visit http://www.widgetbox.com/network and select the Channel that fits your blog
2. Click the Join This Network button, select your blidget (or create one) and then grab the Channel Widget’s code
3. Add the code to your blog template and press activate

I attach a copy of the PowerPoint briefing here:

Widgetbox Blog Network from BlogWorld

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: bloggers blogworld)

Widgetbox Posts

I recently posted two blog posts on the Widgetbox blog and wanted to share them here.

As you know, I am five months into my role at Widgetbox and the posts cover some of the reasons I am so excited about our prospects.

The first post responds to a recent CNET article that speaks to the risks of being a social media application, while the second post comments on the attached image - ie that while the web is fragmenting, a the top 10 sites continue to dominate ad spend and how/why that needs to change.

Widgetbox at SF New Tech

Tonight, SF New Tech is hosting a "Widgets up the Wazoo" event. Gigya, Musestorm, iWidgets, Zembly, and Widgetbox are presenting and all will be demoing.

If you are in SF and interested in the widget space, the event brings together some of the leading players in the space.

Thanks to Lawrence at RateitAll for organizing the event.

SWAT Summit

Last week's SWAT Summit in SF brought together leading players in the social media, brand, and agency worlds. Widgetbox participated on the Social Advertising Case Studies Panel.

First, thanks to Cassie Phillipps and the rest of the gang at Room Full of People for putting on a great show and for including us in the conversation.

While the conference centered on how brands and agencies can best harness the power of the social web, the panel focused on specific campaigns and their results. The audience, like many people I speak with, wanted to understand what advertisers can do to leverage social networks and widgets to connect with their audience.

The other panelists were imeem, Votigo, and BeAffinitive.

Widgetbox presented a case study on a cost-per-install campaign that we ran with a music video provider. The results, as you can see by watching the embedded slide show, were powerful. With an 11-day campaign, the widget enjoyed a 50,000% increase in hits, a 110,000% increase in uniques, and a 8,800% increase in subscriptions. The best news is AFTER the campaign finished, hits continue to grow and the widget is enjoying steady organic adoption and distribution.

If you are interested in running a campaign with Widgetbox, please let me know...will.price at widgetbox.com

Widgetbox SWAT Summit Case Study

view presentation (tags: cpi widgetbox)

Widgetbox is Hiring

Widgetbox is actively hiring senior JAVA and DMBS engineers. The spec follows. If anyone is interested in joining us/me at Widgetbox, please reach out and let me know - will.price at widgetbox.com

Thank you.

Widgetbox is a Sequoia-funded, 23 person Internet startup based in San Francisco that is improving the Internet through choice and access. By connecting widget consumers, creators and advertisers, we provide choice to those who want it and reach to those who need it. We pioneered the rise of widgets to become home to the world’s first and largest widget community, with more than 70,000 widgets and 45 million monthly viewers on over 920,000 domains.

We are interested in talking with candidates who meet the following requirements.

SKILLS AND REQUIREMENTS
Expert in Java, Servlets, and XML
Proficient with Hibernate and Spring
Development and design experience with Service Oriented Architectures
Experience with MySQL a plus
Team leadership experience
Solid track record of meeting deliverable targets, and taking part in successful releases
Strong understanding of web technologies used in social networking and Web2 sites
Experience with performance and scalability work and designing scalable systems

Custom Galleries from Widgetbox

Today, Mashable covered the launch of Widgetbox's Custom Gallery Product. 

Widgetbox is the largest consumer facing widget platform. One of our core assets is the Widgetbox Gallery; home to over 66,000 widgets. Why so many? Because user's love choice and use us to find content that foots to their individual passions and interests, be it finance, sports, children, or Buddhism....

As Mashable notes, with today's product launch third party blog, social network, and website building platforms are able to offer the Widgetbox's widget content to their end users.

We are fortunate to launch the product with some amazing partners, including Typepad, Xanga, Amnesty Hypercube, Doodlekit, Freewebs, Friendcodes, Netvibes, Nimble.ie, Piczo, Synthasite, Webjam, and others.

Why is this important? Users love to express, learn, and interact with widget content and widgets add significant utility and stickiness to consumer web platforms. With simple IFrame or XML/JSON integration, Widgetbox's partners can offer all or a subset of relevant Widgetbox widgets to their endusers.  Some of the partners noted above went live two days after contacting us, and our goal is to make the Custom Gallery a seamless, self-service experience.

Thanks to all our partners on a great launch. If you want to add a Custom Gallery to your blog, social network, or website building platform....drop me a line at will.price at widgetbox.com

How Widgets and Widgetbox Drive Incremental Traffic

Guest post from Ryan Spoon at Widgetbox.


The article below is excellent validation of the power of widgets to drive incremental adoption and of Widgetbox, in particular, to outperform Facebook and Bebo for long-tail widgets. After 7 days, Widgetbox drove 1.7x Facebook's subscriptions and 3.9x Bebo's.

Davids SEO Adventure posted a great article about trying to drive web traffic via widgets and gadgets. David has launched a new website (SodukoWorld.be) and is documenting its growth - and we were pleased to find that Widgetbox has quite helpful thus far:

And after a couple of hours of messing around with Facebook application development, I went of to visit my good ol’ friend Google to see if there was an easier way to do this. And guess what? obviously there was. It came in the name of WidgetBox, the all purpose widget making type system. So I signed myself up, threw some html at it and watched in enwonderment at the resulting usefulness: a SudokuWorld Widget that could be put in Facebook, Bebo, Wordpress and all other sorts of things.

And while creating a widget and Facebook / Bebo application was easy, David also reports that it was effective:

After 2 days

Facebook: 27 users
bebo: 35 users
WidgetBox: 92 users

Outcome: bright and breezy - not too shabby for a beginner

After 7 days

Facebook: 91 users
bebo: 40 users
WidgetBox: 156 users

Output: wahoo!

We are obviously very excited about those results and helping David's business (and others!) grow.

Moving from Humwin to Widgetbox

I am pleased to report that, as of today, I have joined Widgetbox as CEO.

HWVP seeded Widgetbox in April of 2006, and I have steadily grown in confidence in the market, team, and opportunity. The company is an anchor tenant in the web widget marketplace and it will be fun to stay in touch with you all as I move onto a new and exciting chapter in life.

While my six years in venture provided amazing exposure to great teams, companies, and learning, I felt compelled to try my hand, once again, on the operating side. The confluence of my personal aspirations and the quality of the Widgetbox board, investors, team, and market made this an opportunity I could not afford to pass up.

If you have the interest and time, I covered my reasons for the move via a guest post on Techcrunch today.

For those of you who read my blog for insights into the venture business, thank you for reading and commenting on my thoughts to date. From today, the blog will focus on my transition to an operating role, the consumer Internet space, the world of web widgets, and my mistakes and learnings as I look to work with my colleagues at Widgetbox in building a great company.

It should be fun!

Concept to Company Event: Widgets to Riches -- Monetization Strategies for Emerging Web Services Platforms

On Tuesday, May 15th, VLAB and Hummer Winblad are co-hosting the following event:

Concept to Company Event: Widgets to Riches -- Monetization Strategies for Emerging Web Services Platforms

The event is scheduled for 6-8:30 pm at Stanford Business School.

This year's Concept-to-Company will focus on Widgetbox, the leading web widget marketplace and syndication platform. Widgetbox's CEO, Ed Anuff, will present an overview of the market and company.

Other speakers include:

Max Mancini, Senior Director of Platform and Innovation, eBay
Adam Sah, Architect, Google Gadgets, Google
Lance Tokuda, CEO and Founder, RockYou!

The above industry leading experts plan to explore how the widgetization of the web will impact the way we maximize the potential of online communication, efficiency, and revenue generation.

Text from the event host follows:

With the recent proliferation of widgets, widget companies entering the marketplace, and the atomization of content and services, what opportunities do entrepreneurs and VCs see as ways to capitalize on this current trend? Is there a profitable business model for the current trend of decoupling content and services from their source?

Get Feedburner's VC Network Feed as a Widget

Widgetbox, the leader in the web widget space, just released the ability to turn any RSS feed into a web widget. Widgetbox, who recently released a powerful widget syndication platform, is calling blog widgets blidgets.

As many of us read Feedburner's Venture Capital Network feed, I turned the feed into a blidget that can be easily added to your blog.

Click on the button below if you want to add the VC Network blidget to your blog.