One of the key slides was a comparison of Social Ad Networks current capacity which we see here. Across the top are the features offered to advertisers with the name of the network down the left hand side.

All advertisers offer standard display units, some offer Integrated (where you can see social network features such as a photo of a friend who is using the product), very few offer targeting (demographic by age and gender, geo by location or profile data by what people have in their profile interests) mainly because of terms of service restraints by the platform. 

The most interesting column is feature sensitive (or deep integration) where the ad networks provide a commoditised way of purchasing features that are intrinsic to the apps (a Resident Evil version of Zombie, a Mike and Ike sweets gift icon on Gifts or an Indiana Jones Fedora hat on Where I've Been). This is the gold seam for social network advertising.  

The only network really targeting this at the moment is Social Cash with its emerging Point Cash technology which allows apps to sell in game points (eg. coins on My Aquarium for example) to advertisers to offer as rewards to users who click on its ads.

This sheet is based on a review of their web sites and marketing documents. Since then I've met with a few ad networks to understand their offerings in more details and am building a picture of which have the winning technology.

Please do add any comments to this post and I'll try to update the framework with the most correct information about the various feature sets of the social ad networks.

Here it is (hope it works):

| View Show | Create Your Own

For those who don't know the context, read Facebook Continues War On App Developers. This Week: Super Wall

I should go outside before I get sucked in for another hour.  Well, okay, just.. one.. more.. game..... 

If you have an addictive personality, avoid this game at all costs!  If you're like me and think you're good at exerting self-control, test yourself out here!

Let me know if you have any tips!

Korang bodoh dalam penghasilan slideshow?Tidak pakar dalam mengendalikan software yang hebat² seperti macromedia atau swish? Baik korang mengaku aje macam aku nih sebab aku memang tak reti nak buat lebih² jika nak menghasilkan slideshow.Korang pernah aplikasi Rock-You?Aloh..dalam friendster,myspace ramai aje yang guna benda² ni.Nih aku nak korang tengok aku terjumpa sebiji macam aplikasi Rock-You yang orang lain tuh guna.Asalnya kawan aku minta tolong untuk cari software editor untuk gambar slide.Aku suruh dia guna WMP dia cakap tak reti,padahal benda tu senang aje kalau nak diikutkan.Jadi aku cuba mencari aplikasi yang boleh dipermudahkan untuk orang yang bongok-pemalas untuk dia nih.Dengan tak semena² aku pun terjumpa dan terkagum sekejap sebab senang pulak nak digunakan.

Memula korang install dahulu software ni(software kena carik sendiri,kalo nak dari aku korang bagitau nanti).Software ni bukan standalone punya software(ye ker?)Bila dah install,korang bukak dari icon kat desktop tuh bertajuk “Wondershare Flash SlideShow Builder“.Ia ada dua,satu lagi untuk create theme.Bila korang dah buka, korang akan nampak paparan adalah seperti imej dibawah.Button utama mempunyai 5 kategori iaitu browse,theme,effect,decorate, ngan publish.Seperti yang aku tanda 2,itu adalah kawasan yang memaparkan setiap sub kategori yang korang pilih dari button utama.Manakala kawasan 3 memaparkan file yang terdapat dalam kawasan 2.Dibawah 2 dan 3 merupakan kawasan untuk slide show dan memaparkan tajuk lagu korang.

Sebagai permulaan anda boleh memilih gambar untuk slide show anda dengan hanya menggunakan double click dan ianya secara automatiknya dimasukkan kedalam kawasan slideshow tersebut.Anda boleh mengubah setiap susun atur gambar anda kemudian dengan kaedah drag-and-drop sahaja.

Kemudian kita beralih pada button utama yang kedua,button theme(lihat kawasan bertanda 1).Anda boleh memilih dari 3 sub-kategori yang diberikan dan 1 kategori untuk anda edit sendiri(bila dah jadi pakar).Software asas ini menyediakan 9 jenis dari sub simple,18 jenis dari sub theme dan 10 jenis dari sub thumbnail.Kawasan preview untuk setiap theme yang anda pilih akan dipaparkan di belah kanan anda.Jika anda rasa² yang berminat denga apa yang mereka sediakan,anda boleh browse melalui button dikawsan bertanda 3.

Selepas selesai memilih theme,kita tukar pulak slide animation.Bagaimana kita memilih cara ragaman gambar untuk bergerak².Ini terdapat dalam kawasa effect dan effect juga mempunyai 2 jenis sub kategori.Sub untuk transition iaitu untuk yang pelik² serta mempunyai 715 jenis manakala untuk sub pan/zoom mempunyai sebanyak 10 jenis.Anda boleh memilih sama ada secara rajin atau secara malas untuk setiap gambar.Lihat kawasan ditandakan 3,jika malas-anda boleh memilih secara random(rawak) dan jika anda rajin anda boleh click pada setiap kawasan seperti ditandakan dengan 1 dan 2.Kawasan yang ditandakan 1 adalah cara untuk imej itu bergerak dan kawasan bertanda 2 adalah cara untuk penukaran slide gambar yang seterusnya.Anda yang membuat keputusannya..

Di kawasan decorate,anda boleh memilih 5 jenis dari kepelbagaian gambar icon kecil untuk menambah-lawakan untuk setiap gambar yang anda pilih.Mempunyai 5 jenis sub kategori,text-dimana anda boleh meletakkan perkataan apa sahaja yang sesuai,bubble-meletakkan kotak awan(macam dalam komik selalunya),clipart-Mempunyai icon kecil yang menarik,sound-meletakkan sound² yang best(tapi ada 6 jenis aje) dan anda boleh merakamkan dengan menggunakan button sound.

Aku lebih suka menggunakan icon kecil kerana aku meletakkan lagu kegemaran aku.Kalau letak sound memang potong stim nak layan nanti!Hanya dengan drag-and-drop sahaja anda boleh meletakkan gambar tersebut dimana sahaja untuk memuaskan nafsu anda.Letakkan mouse pada gambar tersebut dan anda akan dapati bahawa ianya boleh dipusing² dan menyesuaikan saiz imej tersebut.

Right click pada lagu yang anda pilih dikawasan music dan pilih edit.Anda boleh memendekkan tempoh lagu yang anda letakkan.Anda boleh menetapkan masa yang tepat untuk timeline lagu keseragaman slideshow secara keseluruhannya.

Tambahan,walaupun ada butang untuk edit image (lihat imej yang pertama-button lelain) tetapi korang boleh jugak double-click pada imej dikawasan slideshow(lihat imej pertama) untuk edit gambar.Gambar hanya boleh diedit dengan menunggang-terbalikkan(rotate) gambar dan menerang-gelapkan gambar tersebut.

Yang terakhir sekali,korang boleh save dalam beberapa format.executable file,generate html,generate sebagai file .swf,boleh juga share online file dan boleh dijadikan sebagai screen saver dalam pc korang.Lepas dah sipa korang bolehla layan awek²/boipren² korang macam yang aku buat nih.(tapi nih bukan awek aku taw!)

Dan hasilnya adalah seperti ini~orang pemalas macam aku memang buat tak berape lawa

Contoh boleh amek kat sini

Sekian sahaja review aku untuk software ini,bagi aku ian sangat mudah,user friendly,boleh buat sesuka hati,tapi kena beli.Mahal plak tuh.Takpe,aku ade crack.Muahahaha!!

~~~~~~~~~komentar empunya foto~~~~~~~~~

]]> http://gigaom.com/?p=13871 Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:44:58 +0000 Stacey Higginbotham http://gigaom.com/?p=13871 In an interview published this morning in the Financial Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he wouldn't be looking to pick up any other Internet companies just because the Yahoo deal failed. One can only imagine how far shares of Facebook would have plummeted on that comment had the social networking site been publicly traded. Ditto for Slide and RockYou, both of whom recently raised money at lofty valuations.

"People don’t understand what they’re talking about," Ballmer told the FT. "At the end of the day, this is about the ad platform. This is not about just any one of the applications." And for Microsoft, according to the interview, the primary ad platform is search. That makes sense as search is a billion-dollar, proven business.

Application companies have some ad revenue, but right now they're kind of like cable channels for the web, while an ad platform is the means to a business model that supports that cable channel. Microsoft wants to own the keys to the business model. So to prove their worth, it's time for application developers to prove their business model.

Now all these companies have two things in common, big names and big VC dollars. I always found the idea of rock stars faintly absurd. Does a rock star developer go up on stage at Glastonbury and code as screaming fans egg him on? The other day I read The Talent Myth by Malcolm Gladwell. In it he argued that a culture that promotes and pampers rock stars sows the seeds of its own failure.

A few weeks ago I heard a VC who had backed a number of successful ventures bemoan the fact that rock stars were great at raising money but not at making it and that he now preferred hungry unknowns. What I find odd about all this money raising is that all the real stars of the previous generation started making money fairly early on and didn't have to raise huge sums on massive valuations. Google took about $26m in total from an angel round and a Series A before getting a reliable revenue stream which has sustained the company ever since.

In backing these rock star encrusted ventures VCs are ignoring the lessons of their own history. Google, Apple, Microsoft, eBay, PayPal, Yahoo were all started by unknowns. All the founders were outsiders whose ideas were initially rejected but still believed in what they were doing and carried on.

It reminds me of British tennis. Every year the LTA pumps more and more money into better and better facilities, coaches, everything, ensuring that young British players have the best of everything and yet they still fail. What nobody has considered is the possibility that lavishing them with everything is what causes them to fail. They are so well tended to they have no hunger. Contrast the rise of Serbian tennis whose current crop of winners had to play on cracked courts with almost no facilities in between being bombed by Nato.

Read more:
On spray and pray
On $100m and $15bn

[slideshare id=458084&doc=herramientas-que-he-aprendido-ha-utilizar-1213092133869204-8&w=425]

Or so RockYou tells me along with its not annoying at all involuntary music as soon as I access the site. This has not put off investors who have just stumped up $35m according to TechCrunch. I suppose the ultimate plan is to throw a million widgets against the wall and see what sticks.

There's a line in the Lacy book describing the dissonance between a line of intense young men working on sparkly glitterballs for 13 year olds to clutter up their facebook pages with. I'm sure they will be able to sell advertising in this stuff one day but I think it's going to be a low value game.

Yahoo's problem is that it is stuck with all the low value advertising while Google hoovers up all the big money by delivering better targeted ads. I've said before there should be less advertising but it should be more useful. Google succeeds because it manages this. Slide and Rockyou have not cracked it yet with Slide's founder suggesting advertising may not be the way forward. I think it is possible for widgets to generate revenue direct from users but once you have given something away for free it is mighty hard to get users to pay for it. And VCs won't pay forever.

The $35 million likely brings RockYou's valuation under fellow widget maker Slide's, which was $550 million in its last $50 million round from two private equity funds. It's also less than a reported $50 million-$70 million on a $400 million valuation that RockYou was supposedly seeking. An insider spun this difference in valuation with Slide as a positive thing, though, telling us it would make RockYou a more digestible acquisition target.

Competition is fierce between the companies; in our experience it's impossible to interview RockYou CEO Lance Tokuda without him carrying on about Slide. Though some of his points seem valid -- Slide execs have admitted some of their products and features were inspired by competing with RockYou. However, Slide has CEO Max Levchin's impeccable PayPal pedigree, whereas RockYou's founding was tied up in a lawsuit claiming that Tokuda and cofounder Jia Shen stole the idea from their former employer, Iconix (it was settled out of court).

RockYou says it has 87.5 million monthly uniques and 2.7 billion page views across its network. It's impressive reach, but along with that comes impressive infrastructure costs. The company's justification for the new funding isn't terribly specific -- it said it wants to hire, expand advertising and publisher offerings, and add more applications (BTW Slide apparently said it's done adding new Facebook applications). In terms of anticipating and fine-tuning what it's audience wants from its products, I'd give RockYou the upper hand, but making money may take a different skill set. The plan is "building brand awareness and loyalty" by tapping into engaged young users.

The funny thing is I was interested in Lacy for precisely this reason. She did a now infamous interview with Mark Zuckerberg at SXSW, didn't let the reaction get her down and came back with her book a few months later. Zuckerberg has many strengths but he comes across as quite a boring dude. On the occasions I have seen video of interviews with him he reminds me of Ryan Giggs circa 1993 (with apologies to non-football fans). So the interview wasn't great but she did her best with an uncharismatic interviewee with not much to say. This hardly warranted the hysterical reaction which followed so I wanted her to succeed with this book.

Lacy talks about how much effort it was to write it and I'm sure it was but she could have saved herself a good deal by just publishing edited transcripts of the interviews. Jessica Livingstone did this with Founders at Work and produced a far better book. The other advantage of FAW is that Livingstone doesn't insert her own opinions about everything into it. She just stands back and lets the interviewee speak for himself. Lacy on the other hand tries to construct a broader narrative and her strong opinions come along for the ride. She is particularly subjective about the competition between Slide and RockYou which is fine for a participant but not for a journalist.

The very best example of using narrative is High Stakes, No Prisoners written by an insider, Charles Ferguson, about selling Vermeer Technologies to Microsoft in the first boom. What was interesting for me is that Ferguson had dealings with Netscape and Andreessen, who gets far less hagiographic treatment than Lacy gives him and gave me a useful counterpoint when he was mentioned in her book. I get the feeling that Lacy is wary of offending anyone important in Silicon Valley which is good for her future access but bad for the book. John Battelle managed it better with The Search, mainly because he wrote about people who never became (Internet) famous like Bill Gross. Lacy never does this, it would have been interesting if she had included someone I had never heard of before I picked it up. The closest she comes is with Sean Parker but he is really only included as an adjunct to Mark Zuckerberg.

The only genuinely interesting character in the book is Max Levchin who has led a fairly extraordinary existence and to Lacy's credit she focuses the book on him. I think she lets Jay Adelson off far too lightly. I am a great believer in taking responsibility for your mistakes and judging by the book he is in the 'I did nothing wrong and everyone shafted me' brigade. The bottom line is he had $55m in a publicly listed stock some of which he could have liquidated at any time for a nest egg. This is after Marc Andreessen told him to sell, not after the event - at the time. As his wife said to him "You had one of the smartest men in the world telling you to sell and you didn't". Quite.

Now, with apologies to Erich and co I will do my ratings:
Number of times Lacy referred to 'Zuck': 5,394
Number of sweaty palms belonging to Zuck at his first speaking engagement: 2
Number of times MySpace described as 'being held together with string': 1
Number of Slide products 'inspired' by RockYou: 386
Number of hysterical overreactions to Lacy's SXSW interview: 55,356,043
Number of Webs: 2.0

Pic: Valleywag

But what would be the "right" answer? After thinking about it some more, I still find Flickr the most interesting one, since they managed to cultivate such a creative atmosphere, look and feel. Or maybe it's LinkedIn, aspecially from a business standpoint with their sky high RPMs, potential for becoming (they already are) a major player for recruitment etc. Or maybe it's the metaplatform play of Ning, the social network to end all social networks?

The right answer, of course, is no social network is interesting by it self. At least not anymore. The interesting stuff are the services and features that can be enabled the social web as a whole, by using the social graph (lacking a better word) and the content produced with social distribution in mind. I can't see why Facebook, MySpace and others will be able to keep apps from being distributed, since the limitations in those environments limits the quality that one can achieve in terms of features and user experience.

So the companies to watch aren't the social networks in themselves, but the initiatives leveraging multiple social networks such as Slide or Rockyou, or data portability such as MySpace/Google Friend Connect, modular publishing platforms such as Wordpress etc, pushing the platform from being an individual social *network*, to the social *web* as a whole.

This influx of cash comes at a moment of fierce consolidation and competition in the social gaming space, with SGN and rivals like Zynga and Rock You jostling for dominance. Last week I had a chance to chat with SGN CEO Shervin Pishevar, and got a glimpse at some of the company's future battle plans.

While Social Gaming Network's low-graphics games aren't likely to be confused with a next-gen title, he told me, they're successful enough. "Small is the new big, right?" Games like Warbook can be made with a low budget, he noted. "Even having a 100,000 daily active users is good revenue." (At peak usage with a sponsorship deal, he said, Warbook was making $100,000 a month.) "We're much more about engagement and retentions than virality," Pishevar told me.

Over the next few months, Shervin Pishevar and his small team will be working on several top secret games that'll leverage advertising and virtual item sales for revenue. While still relatively low budget, he's working with developers to give these new titles more polish. The goal, said Pishevar, is to transform Social Gaming Network into "the Pixar of social games." Whether that'll enable them to dominate this space remains to be seen, but $15 million in the bank is a potent advantage.

The two best known widget companies are Slide and RockYou. Both have grown exponentially via the social networks, Facebook and MySpace in particular. Their bread-and-butter offerings let users post pictures in slide show formats. They've expanded beyond that for other hits, like SuperWall and FunWall.

There's a quality to their business models that seems to require a regular stream of hits. For the sake of argument, let's say there are two business models. One is to create products that are enduring, and have an established place in the market. Microsoft Office. Tide detergent. USA Today. Margins (non-software) may be lower, but the stability represents good cash flow.

The second model is to create a regular string of hits. Disney Studios, EA computer games, Donna Versace. Margins are higher, and when you're on a roll, the money pours in. But it is hard to always have a hit.

Slide and RockYou do have some established hits. They have great install numbers for several of their widgets. But to truly be huge, they'll need more. I see them as more similar to movie studios than anything else:

• They need releases that people will want (mega-hits, niche successes)
• They need distribution of their product (like movies need theaters, DVD distros)
• They need to monetize (OK, this is where they fall down a bit. People aren't paying $9.00 to use the widgets).

Slide and RockYou need to be tech savvy. Jeremiah's post lists issues they have to deal with: multiple APIs (Facebook, MySpace, etc.); changing APIs. They need to have a flair for creating great interactive experiences. And they need creativity to come up with new ideas.

This isn't to say that they won't build up a list of hits that transcend the up-and-downs that mark creativity-driven enterprises. EA has a great set of franchises in its sports video game collections. But the pressure to create new stuff is always there.

Slide recently raised $50 million, on a valuation of $500 million. Nice valuation, but the company has some challenges ahead of it. There's that annoying need to monetize its widgets. Also, unlike reliable movie theaters that need releases, Slide and RockYou are depending on consumers to install their widgets. I imagine they'll target websites as well - a bit easier and more stable than those fickle consumers.

And just as important, both Slide and RockYou need to set up their creative shops and processes such that a regular stream of potential hits are rolled out. They'll make their lives easier by partnering with other companies that have "widget-izable" content. Touring through the Slide site, I see TechCrunch, Engadget and HotOrNot with widgets there.

There's a real opportunity in widgets, but it takes more than throwing sheep at people.

Where that leaves startups such as RockYou and Slide, which develop entertainment widgets, and the ad networks that cater to those applications, is still unclear. I'm waiting to see if enough users buy into ads shown on their fun widgets or click through enough transactional widgets to make a viable business. However, existing online ad networks and possibly a few new widget creation and advertising firms are already proving that widgets aren't just fun and games.

WidgetBucks is one such widget-creation/ad network company making money with this approach. CEO and Chairman Matt Hulett says the company sees click-through rates of 0.5 percent to 1 percent with its ads, which resemble interactive, dynamic banner ads. The company expects to pull in $10 million in sales this year. The company's approach, however, has come with its share of drama, as some publishers have complained about WidgetBucks' rates and practices.

When it comes to making his widgets a success for advertisers, Hulett based his design on the theory that people using widgets for fun aren't expecting to be engaged in commerce, but people in other venues (such as those reading a product blog, for example) might welcome widget advertising that shows the latest deals on a device.

"It's kind of like pre-roll advertising," Hulett said. "It’s really hard when the context is around having fun. People do not like monetization in front of those platforms and the CPMs are awful."

A similar approach to using a widget as a more interactive ad rather than entertainment is Toyota's new campaign for its Scion vehicles, which launched on Tuesday. This is an example of widgets as brand advertisement, which can be spread virally around the Internet. The idea is that consumers use the widgets on social media sites as an identification of their aspirations, much like one might wear a Nike shirt.

Adrian Si, an interactive marketing manager for Scion, says the firm is using widgets as an extension of the rich media banner ads it runs through Interpolls. Si is hoping to achieve the same 1 percent to 2 percent click-through rate Scion sees using Interpolls' rich media banners. That translates to a 4 percent to 5 percent engagement rate. Scion will measure both click-throughs as well as the number of times the widget is installed on someone's site.

"This could be more valuable [than banner ads]," says Si. "Obviously, it shows they have a lot of interest in the brand. On their MySpace pages they can put a whole bunch of stuff, so it must have meaning to them. It's also an opportunity to get our brand in front of them every day."

Listening to these two companies I realized that widgets aren't a new business, but rather a new form of advertising and entertainment. Those focused on advertising are making money; the question is, will the ones focused on entertainment do so, too?

The biggest take-away from the panel discussion for foldier is: applications "attacking" utility issues for Internet users will be in high demand in the coming months. We've seen some fun entertainment apps, and now the panel is forecasting apps that make using our content easier. While foldier is a standalone system that people can use without any connection to the social networks, a great many of our members will be linking to their content on a variety of networks and sharing links with others, organizing their content and searching it very easily.

So whether we wear a social network application hat or a foldier-only hat, we are all about making the Internet easier to navigate. Last night was yet another validation of our purpose and our timing.

Sekarang ini, di bagian bawah panel posting, sudah ada bagian untuk menguploadnya, beserta cara embed ke dalam postingannya. Instruksinya lengkap untuk Video YouTube, Google Video, Daily Motion atau menggunakan Vodpod (tool Firefox extension untuk grab video ke postingan blogWordPress). Kode video yang ditambah tanda [ dan ] diantaranya di isikan di kolom atasnya dan klik "send to editor" agar kode berpindah ke panel postingan.

Sedangkan untuk embed Slideshow, seperti di Guestbook aku itu, bisa langsung dilihat dibagian ini caranya. Ngga cuma dari Slide.com, tapi juga bisa untuk Slideshownya RockYou, Slideshare dan Splashcast.

Cukup masukan kode yang diberikan oleh situs slideshow tadi setelah kita setting-setting gambar disana, menggunakan tanda [ dan ] diantara kodenya.

Mudah kan ? :D

The story has consistently been framed as an issue of getting users rather than making money. For a while the excitement was around MySpace, then Facebook opened its APIs and the widget makers rushed into a promised land of adoption and media coverage. But as social networks and widget platforms, such as Clearspring, begin to explore monetization strategies, and as widget makers such as Slide pull in large amounts of capital, the time to prove that widgets can make money is here.

There are few ways companies are doing this, with the most obvious one centered around using a widget as a billboard. If you already make money from your content and can offer something interesting, a widget is a good way to extend your brand and get people to watch your new television show, read your content or see your movie.

Examples of this type of widget includes the film widgets from the likes of MovieFone, or the widget tools The Wall Street Journal and New York Times offer via Netvibes. In fact, Netvibes is looking to take this a step further by charging people for better placement of their widgets on its personalized home page in a manner similar to Google's AdSense program.

If you buy into the idea of widgets as a billboard, or that some type of advertising could eventually be shown on widgets, then the idea of knowing how many people are snagging or looking at your widget -- and how often -- becomes interesting. Services such as ClearSpring, MuseStorm and Triggit provide these sorts of tracking and analytics services and already charge -- or plan to charge -- the widget makers a fee. Those that charge widget makers serving advertisers such as major publishers and sports leagues are in luck. Those that charge consumer widget makers without a clear revenue model might find themselves wondering what to do if their customers don't make money.

But running analytics and platforms can be a challenge when there are no set standards for widget monetization. Much like the early days of banner advertising, when people just sold whatever unused space they had, the world of widget ads is a Wild West with no set sizes, rules about placements, or even defined success metrics.

Many company executives and their venture backers in the space believe that the Interactive Advertising Bureau, widget makers, social networks and publishers will get together in the near future to hammer out standards, from something as simple as how to determine the appropriate pixel height and width of an in-widget ad to how to figure out when a widget ad is successful.

Some of the metrics currently being considered include charging advertisers based on: the number of people who see the widget (cost per thousand); the number of people who actually interact with the widget (cost per click); and the cost per install, which measures how many people snag the widget for their own page. As much as analytics can tell people about what happens with a widget and where it goes, it's still hard to say how successful it has been unless it's tied directly to a purchase. And frankly, even those numbers can be tweaked.

This standardization will likely emerge once a successful model does. So far, Beacon isn't winning rave reviews and it's worth waiting a bit to see what some of the more consumer focused widget-creation platforms like RockYou and Slide can contribute with their revenue models, but my bet is this will happen sooner rather than later (like 2009).

Much like Google monetizes their users by giving them something that enough people want (search results, free directory services via GOOG411) and then painlessly taking something Google can use (money from advertisers, a sampling of accents for its voice recognition efforts), a widget monetization strategy needs to keep users happy while also giving something of value to someone.

The challenge facing most widget makers that target consumers is figuring out what it is their widget-watchers have that's valuable -- and who might want it. Those focused on a more ad-centric model are going ahead with their plans to use the widget as a more interactive billboard, but companies like Slide and RockYou may find that strategy more difficult.

Even with the uncertainly, I agree with Satya Patel of Battery Ventures (and a former Google executive) who says, "While widgets have generated a lot of hype, they are certainly an important vehicle for content, commerce, communications and advertising and they are here to stay. There will be several large businesses built in and around the widget market." But I think we'll also see a lot of them fail.