Widgets: The New Black -- More Useful Than Ever

By Beth Kanter
The Web is increasingly turning into a sort of online mall with its boutiques filled with thousands of useful, off-the-rack accessories of every description and utility. In the age of openness, it's suddenly very fashionable and sexy to accessorize Web sites with widgets: small applications that plug into bigger ones. There are a lot of really fun and innovative widgets out there that can add functionality and effective calls to action.

The formal definition of a Web Widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate html-based Web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. They are akin to plugins or extensions in desktop applications. Other terms used to describe a Web Widget include Gadget, Badge, Module, Capsule, Snippet, Mini and Flake. Web Widgets often but not always use Adobe Flash or JavaScript programming languages.

A few important questions to ask before your consider adding a widget to your blog or Web site.

• Does your Web site or blog publish excellent content on a regular basis?
• Do you ask good questions that lead to conversations online?
• Do you have strategies for encouraging those conversations and linking them to your content?
• Do you write blog posts that inspire lots of comments?
• Do you employ a social networking or online outreach strategy that engages your regular readers and enables new readers to discover you?

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Although using widgets is not yet a standard practice on nonprofit blogs and Web sites, many organizations are experimenting and learning. They have identified the benefits of widgets:

• Easy to use, you don't need technical skills
• Can help you extend or enhance the conversation on your blog
• Can help you "listen" by gathering feedback and other information from your blog readers
• Can help you easily link to other sites, content, or individuals
• Can help make your blog more "findable"
• They are lots of fun

• If most of your readers are following you via blog readers, they might not "pop" out of their reader to visit your browser.
• The more widgets you add to your blog or Web site, the longer it could take to load your site. Be sure to place your flash widgets at the top of page, and try to keep it to no more than three or four on a page.
• Many blogs end up being positioned higher in search engine searches, so there must be some blogs that are being discovered via the browser and not a reader. So, perhaps widgets should be designed to reach first-timers or new readers. Consider them as a strategy for point of entry. You need to know from where your audience is coming to your blog.
• Consider your audience when you select a particular widget. If you're a podcaster and your audience is likely to have a microphone installed on their computer, then voice message widgets might make sense.
• The use of widget must be linked to the topic, content, or purpose of your blog or Web site, such as linking a poll to a post on the topic.
• Some widgets offer more control over the look and feel if you need to use particular color schemes. Not all widgets are ugly.
• Be sure to test these widgets to make sure they are installed and work.

A Few Good Examples

There are a group of widgets designed to spark conversation or interactivity on your site or blog. These include voice mail messages, IM widgets, audience polls and others. Audience poll widgets seem to be more widely in use by nonprofits. Some good polling widgets include Vidzu and PollDaddy.

• You can do a general reader survey, such as the nonprofit tech blog
• You can connect it to content in a post such as the Bamboo Project
• Or you can connect to the key goals of your blog, say, Save Guimaris

There are many widgets that allow you take content from one site or location on the Web and easily republish it elsewhere. The best examples are the widgets or badges provided by well-established Web.20 services such as Delicious, Flickr, YouTube, and others. If you are already using one of those services and want to integrate content onto your blog or Web site, check on their Web site first. They might not be calling it a widget. Some refer to them as "badges." Simply look in the "help" section of your favorite Web2.0 social networking site.

Fundraising is the life's blood of nonprofits and is another area of active experimentation using strategies called "personal fundraising." Think citizen donor, citizen philanthropist. Widgets, charity badges, blog fundraising plugins allow your supporters to become messengers for your cause. The shift is now from the organization raising money to the supporters taking on that role/responsibility. The Widget just helps people track their commitment and shows progress being made.

You can find widgets at most Web 2.0 social networking platforms. Some blogging hosts and platforms also offer "widget galleries," widget collections that are easily integrated into their platform. Finally, there are widget directory and aggregator sites like snipperoo or widget box.

Successfully using widgets to realize outcomes is going to be a matter of experimentation and learning. Above all, the widget needs to be connected with your blog's or Web site's content, readers' interests, or to amplify conversation. The best way to get started is to pick a few widgets, install them, and track them over a period of a month or so. Figure out if your strategy is bringing in new traffic, generating more comments/activity on your blog, or making visitors take action. If not, don't be afraid to ditch it.

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Beth Kanter runs Beth's Blog. She can be reached at beth@bethkanter.org

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