So what's the big deal?
Recent data from comScore Widget Metrix shows that widgets have a 67 percent reach or audience potential worldwide. What brand marketer wouldn't want to tap into such an influential distribution network? But reach is not the only thing that makes these little applications so appealing. Their very nature makes them extremely viral. With the click of a button, widgets are embedded into homepages, blogs and social networking profile pages where they are distributed further amongst a user's network of friends. But just how big are these environments? Below are just a few stats from recent comScore data to give you an idea of the potential for these tiny applications:
- Personalized homepages such as iGoogle, My Yahoo and MSN homepages reach a combined 38 percent of the total worldwide audience, with 306 million monthly unique visitors.
- Blogs have a 49 percent reach worldwide, attracting 396 million monthly unique visitors, or 48 percent of the total internet audience.
- Social networks have a 63 percent reach worldwide, attracting 516 million monthly unique visitors, or 63 percent of the total internet audience.
Geographically, if we break down the 63 percent worldwide reach of social networks, it looks a little more like this:
Top Social Networks by Geographic Area
Worldwide “Reach”
No single widget will completely penetrate any of these ecosystems, but given their ability to be rolled out across platforms for little incremental investment, the potential is large.