Widgets are the new plastics


Today Greg Howelet at Marketing Pligram is pointing to this study result:

55% of online retailers want to focus more on widgets. Widgets are those little snippets of code that run on desktops or other websites and perform some small service while giving the originating company exposure. We are starting to see more and more widgets. Ebay and Amazon are both experimenting with them. Many a SEO campaign has been built on a widget strategy-every time a widget is placed on another site, it generates a valuable(?) link back to the originating site.

Last week it was Bob Benz on the Maroon Ventures blog:

In an online universe were content is becoming progressively more distributed, widgets will be a key way to ensure your presence across the internet.

And Benz was noting Rob Curley’s comments the evening before on what the Washington Post is doing in the way of wiidgets.
And last month:

There have been a lot of stories in the news lately about the economic struggles of the newspaper and magazine industries and how they are trying to adapt their businesses to compete online. According to Carolyn Bekkedahl, syndicating their content through ad-supported widgets is a viable solution for publishers looking for innovative digital advertising strategies to grow their businesses.

And there’s a Widget Expo in June. which “looks at one of the key emerging online trends: the widgetization of content for social networks.”

Like Mr. McGuire in The Graduate: Just one word: “Widgets.”