Wacky Widgets Continue Growth

Fortune reports on the extreme valuation that T.Rowe Price and Fidelity have projected in Slide, one of the top widget producers given their recent $50 million, 9.1% stake investment in the firm.  Their 50 million widget users, with many more projected to be on the way, are seen as providing a potential monetization opportunity well beyond the keyword ad results associated with search engine giant Google.  With "engagement marketing" becoming the new mantra on the web, it is felt that what better tool to generate engagement then one where the user elects to interact for play, content acquisition or other purposes.

The article also references RockYou, "Slides" largest competitor. 

In other widget news, The Wall Street Journal references Gigya a widget distributor that recently raised $9.5 million.  In a brief report compiled by Scott Austin of VentureWire, the Journal states "The publisher can track the number of times a widget is installed, where it is placed and how many times it is viewed, among other metrics."

For more on widgets see my article "Widgets - web components for plug, play and pay" in Wisconsin Technology Network. 

Paul Gibler