Widgetbox Breaks 100m Monthly Uniques, Introduces Facebook Connect

Today Widgetbox reached a significant milestone in its three-year history: 100,000,000 monthly uniques (covered by TechCrunch here). Measured by Quantcast, our widgets are now seen by 100.5m unique users each month and served over 700m times - representing more than 2x growth in the last year: Those users are split evenly between men and women (51% / 49%) and have sweet spot of 35-49 and 18-34 year olds (35% and 30% respectively):

Also worth noting: only 1% of those 100m uniques are on Facebook - meaning our core audience is distributed across a long tail of 100,000s of domains.

Of course, Facebook is a current priority for Widgetbox and we are focused on also growing that audience. Widgetbox has now introduced Facebook Connect - enabling users to share / publish their widgets directly within the Facebook Feed.

Below is an example of a widget published through Facebook Connect (notice the 'play' button overlayed atop the widget's icon):

When clicked, the widget expands and is fully interactive... directly within the Facebook Feed:

Twitter Media Campaign: Followers, Custom Twitter Widget & Promotion

Twitter is a powerful marketing lever for communications, traffic acquisition and user interaction (read more here). But to leverage Twitter, the fact is that you need to build a following... a task that is particularly difficult for fledgling users. In fact, earlier today, TechCrunch reported that 80 Percent Of Accounts Have Fewer Than 10 Followers.

Widgetbox is introducing a new pilot program to help you utilize Twitter as part of your social media / user acquisition strategy. Based on the chosen package, Widgetbox will:

- build you a custom Twitter widget - build your Twitter following (either by 1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 followers) - promote and distribute your widget

Widgetbox can help users and brands either grow their Twitter campaigns OR launch / create their strategies. In either approach, letting Widgetbox grow your Twitter presence will make your marketing efforts more effective and allow you to consistently and more easily grow your following.

The three packages are below. You can contact me directly to get started (rspoon at gmail.com). See more on Widgetbox here.

Facebook Feed Widgets Using Widgetbox (New!)

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Thanks to Chai's new Newsfeed RSS application, you can now use Widgetbox to create Blidgets and Blidget Pros from your Facebook Feed. Add you Twitter activity, blog and/or RSS feed to make your comprehensive social media widget.

Here's how:

1. To get started, allow the new Newsfeed RSS Application on Facebook and grant it access. The application will access your Facebook feed and convert it into an RSS feed. read more about Newsfeed RSS on ReadWriteWeb.

2. Once you have granted Newsfeed RSS access, you will be provided a link to your feed. You can now enter that directly into the Widgetbox Blidget Pro editor (enter directly from the homepage). You will now have the options to:

- customize the Blidget Pro's appearance - customize the feed's layout (supposedly images are coming soon!) - add multiple tabs to the widget (such as Twitter, blog feeds, etc)

Here is an example using: - my Facebook Badge as my Blidget's header - three tabs: my Facebook feed, my Twitter feed and my blog feed

Widgetbox Introduces Facebook App Compatibility

Last week, Widgetbox launched the ability to simply (a couple clicks) turn your widgets into Facebook Applications. They run on the profile page, have their own 'canvas page', are sharable, and hit the Facebook newsfeed.... making the widgets viral and accessibleacross your Facebook network. A couple examples / screenshots:

My Blidget Pro

Converting it into a Facebook App

It is a step-by-step flow that allows users to customize the look of version that appears directly on the Facebook Profile:

Facebook App: On The Profile (different example)

There are two versions of the Facebook App: one for the profile page (think of it like a mini-app) and the full version on the canvas page:

Facebook App: Full Canvas Page

Widgetbox Introduces Custom HTML Widget Tabs

Widgetbox's Blidget Pro continues to get feature enhancements. Last week we introduced two new features for Blidget Pros:1. Geographic & in-widget click tracking 2. Add/remove the Get Widget button

Today, we announced another exciting addition to the product:

Custom Blidget Pro Tabs

The custom tab enables you to add content to your widget that is not feed-based - meaning, you can add custom, formatted text, links and pictures directly inside your widget! With the custom tab, you are able to:

- Add text and images - Format that content: font size, color, alignment, etc - Create hyperlinks to promote your content and sites - Change the content on an ongoing basis... and have it automatically refresh across the web

You can see an example on my personal widget in the fourth tab:

If you already have a Blidget Pro, simply login to edit it and press the "Add a Tab" button. There is a new "Custom Tab" option within that menu.

Google AdSense Expandable Ads... No More?

I was very excited to read that Google AdSense was launching Expandable Ads - essentially growing rich media units that are more interactive and likely draw greater CPMs. I am excited because it is an opportunity to expand the reach of richer ad units which are making waves in video (see VideoEgg, Tremor Media, etc) and in widgets (Widgetbox). Venturebeat had this screenshot:

But strangely, Google has since removed their post about the product that has been linked to from various sites... was this intended as a private beta launch? Or did it leak? Not sure - but hopefully it will make it way onto this blog!

Page not found Sorry, the page you were looking for in the blog Inside AdSense does not exist.

Update: Google's blog post is now live again.

Widgetbox Partners with Atlassian & Confluence

Widgetbox is pleased to announce that you can now add their widgets to pages inside of Atlassian’s Confluence enterprise wiki. Confluence is the largest commercial wiki with over 7,000 enterprise customers worldwide. With this integration, Confluence users can quickly and easily add any of Widgetbox's 117,000 widgets to their wiki page, blog post or personal space.

Jay Simons, Atlassian’s VP of Marketing is really excited about the integration:

Our integration with Widgetbox is a great example of how wikis aren’t just for text anymore. Confluence customers want to add videos, slideshows, stock quotes and other dynamic content to their pages. By supporting Widgetbox, we’re giving our users access to an almost limitless amount of rich content.

Widgetbox has thousands of widgets to help business teams collaborate and stay informed. For example:

- A project team working toward a deadline can add a countdown widget to their project page.

- A company with offices around the globe might add an international clock widget to their Confluence dashboard.

- Or a salesperson might add LinkedIn badge or a SkypeMe widget to her Confluence personal space.

Confluence users can also make their own widgets with Widgetbox's Blidget and Blidget Pro tools. With these tools users can create custom, branded widgets from RSS feeds, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and other services. To see a demo of Confluence / Widgetbox integration in action, check out the video below:

To learn more about Atlassian and Confluence, please visit their website at http://atlassian.com/confluence or read their related blog post on Atlassian's Blog.

You can also read coverage on VentureBeat.

Widgetbox Introduces the Blidget Pro

Widgetbox has released the Blidget Pro product: the next generation of our successful Blidget tool. Also worth noting, it is our first subscription-based service ($3.99 / mo or $29.99 / year). 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. It represents a major step forward – and the best way to give you a feel for its capabilities is with some samples (the full feature set is below). Please contact me if you are interested in learning more or how Widgetbox can help you and your company:

- 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 (Hulu example) - New visual layouts (slideshow, brick-mode, headlines with images) - Custom widget linking (header, footer and/or body) - Premium promotion on Widgetbox.com -Widget analytics (installs, widget views, uniques)

Real-Time Sports Scores Widget by InGameNow

You can already take InGameNow on the go with our iPhone Apps and Google Talk / AOL Instant Messanger integration. Now you can take InGameNow directly to your website with our new live sports scores and scoreboard widgets. On an aside, InGameNow is starting to gain serious momentum. During Sunday's AFC Championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens (two small/medium-sized markets), over 2,500 InGameNow posts were exchanged specifically about the game. And the day before, we launched a full scoreboard on the homepage that we are continuing to roll-out thorughout the site and team pages... much more to come in the next couple weeks.