This is the third in a series of six posts highlighting each of the six best practices discussed in the Best Practices - Driving Web Traffic & Monetization With Widgets webinar from earlier in the month.  This time around we'll talk about the importance of aggregating content from multiple sources.

Why is this important?  For the simple fact that the "content universe" is far larger than what you/your site publish.  As such, it is useful to combine multiple content sources -- both in house and syndicated.  In order to create a robust widget it is helpful to leverage NewsGator's discovery tools and editorial control, which include a feed search which gives you the ability to control post level content within each feed. We have a whopping 2.3 million feeds which you can choose from! 

For instance, the inRich news widget which NewsGator powers allows users to select feeds from a variety of sources.  And,despite "living" on CBS news, their politics widget aggregates information by reading in content from a wide variety of (non-CBS) sources. Clearly, giving your viewers access to a wide variety of content, both internal and external, allow for a more rich experience for the user and enhances the engagement quotient.  Don't be shy in combining multiple content sources in your widgets!

In related news, Jeff Nolan lead a very successful webinar -- The Me Revolution: Transforming Media & Brands Using Widgets -- earlier today; we'll have highlights of that next week.

Valeria Maltoni over at Conversation Agent has an interesting blog post up this morning on  interaction within the social media space.  Since conversation is a huge part of my job as Community Manager at NewsGator Widgets, I found the post to be highly pertinent.  I suggest you read the whole post, but here are a few of my favorite nuggets from it:

• "Most behaviors and ideas spread through populations because of what the members of the populations do or think or say in response to each other"
• "We are all moving very fast these days. At times our paths cross just like ships in the night."
• "In marketing we talk about value propositions all the time. These are the benefits you bring to the table as seen by your customers...[there is] a bell curve between company-speak and customer-speak. The truth, and value, is often somewhere in between, where the conversation takes place."

Make sure you check out the entire blog post here.

A reminder that the next installment in our series of ongoing, free webinars -- The Me Revolution: Transforming Media & Brands -- will take place tomorrow at 2pm ET.  It is not too late to register!  The basic premise of the webinar will address the question, "will you lead current media trends or follow your competitors?"

The webcast will feature Jeff Nolan, NewsGator’s VP, Software-as-a-Service, who will discuss how widgets play into current media trends and how companies such as National Geographic, CBS and Discovery are using them to drive revenues. Some specific webinar topics will include:

• Widget basics from a digital producer, content manager and web designer perspective
• Content syndication vs. monetization objectives
• How to get started

We very much hope you can join us for what's sure to be an interesting and informative discussion.  You can register to participate here. 

A cool, new basketball widget has been launched on NBA.com which NewsGator created for Turner Network Television (TNT).  The widget displays the top five best highlight's from TNT's popular, Emmy-award winning program -- Inside the NBA -- with Charles Barkely, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson. 

Like any of NewsGator's viral widgets, by clicking on "get this" at the bottom left of the widget you can grab it and put it on your own site.  You can add it to any of the following sites/pages: Pageflakes, Netvibes, iGoogle, Facebook, Typepad, Blogger, MySpace, Freewebs or Live Spaces.  So if you're a basketball fan and you want to stay up to date with the latest NBA highlights, make sure you get this widget! 

Last week our own Jeff Nolan (VP of NewsGator's SaaS) was at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.  He's got some great reflections that you'll want to check out here.  He brings up an intriguing point that for him, sometimes the conference experience is more important than the actual content.  Sometimes it's the unscripted interactions that take place in the hallways between sessions that provide the most interesting insights. 

I also stumbled upon a video interview with Brian Solis (social media evangelist of Future Works, PR2.0 blog and bub.blicio.us during) at the expo.  He talks about the dynamic, often messy, interaction between technology on one end of the spectrum, and communications on the other.  He also brings up the importance of "backchannel" communication -- such as Twitter -- playing an intregral role to the conference itself; this point, in many ways, is similar to Jeff's comment that some of the more interesting discussions at a conference may be outside the confines of the actual room where a speaker or panel is talking. 

Today has been designated as the "Enterprise RSS Day of Action."  This initiative was started by James Dellow, who blogs at ChiefTech.  His site has lots of information regarding this day.  Why am I mentioning this?  Well, because NewsGator is participating in this ongoing discussion about the intersection of RSS + Enterprise; (see my previous post about Enterprise and widgets).  NewsGator has contributed to the Enterprise RSS Day of Action Wiki, where you'll find all sorts of informative posts regarding this dynamic topic. 

Specifically, see NewsGator's contribution to the Wiki regarding RSS syndication through the use of widgets as well as other applications of enterprise-level RSS. We're the second (Federal Credit Union), third (Professional Services) and fifth (Content Syndication) use case example on this page in the Wiki.  As you can see, there are a wide range of use applications of RSS that NewsGator is involved in. 

Also, check out what NewsGator's own Laura Farrelly (Director of Marketing) has to say regarding our participation in this initiative.  You can always learn more about NewsGator's syndication services here.

Happy RSS-ing!

This is the second in a series of six posts highlighting each of the six best practices discussed in the Best Practices - Driving Web Traffic & Monetization With Widgets webinar from earlier in the month.  This time around we'll talk about the importance of knowing your audience and selecting relevant content that will appeal to them. 

The first step is establishing who your target audience is and where live; are they local, regional, national or international?  Second is determining what they care about, and with this you can cater to the specific interests of users.  Since widgets are generally easily deployable, the best strategy may be to make several widgets that focus on separate topics (i.e., politics, the economy, sports). 

A key part of building a successful widget is encouraging interaction by using dynamic (and in some cases localized) content.  Enabling users to provide content can also make your widget significantly more appealing.  In addition, engaging users with a variety of content types (pictures, video, text) can make the user experience more robust.

In short, before deploying a widget, it is vital that you are familiar with your target demographic and figure out what makes them tick.  This step is critical to creating a successful, dynamic widget that users want to interact with. 

CBS is one of the many media outlets that has widgets powered by NewsGator technology.  Recently, they released a media gallery of the widgets that are live on their site, the majority of which were built by NewsGator. 

A perusal through this gallery will provide you with an excellent idea of the breadth and depth of online content and content sources that NewsGator can help you syndicate.  Check out the Top News widget for Facebook, or the Political News widget we power.  One of the most popular widgets that we've created for CBS are the presidential candidate widgets.  For instance, check out the Barack Obama candidate widget, a screen shot of which is shown at right.   

NewsGator widgets can dramatically extend your site's reach and improve monetization.  If you are in print, broadcast or online media and distribute content, make sure you look through the wide variety of widgets NewsGator has produced for CBS.   

On this blog, we'll frequently be highlighting a wide range of widgets produced by NewsGator, so make sure you check back often.

Our friends over at ReadWriteWeb had a fascinating post this past weekend regarding business adoption of Web 2.0 technologies.  They cite a report released by Forrester Research predicting that Enterprise-level spending on Web 2.0 companies -- which stood at $455 million in 2007 -- will explode to a $4.6 billion market by 2013.

The report also broke down Enterprise spending by type of Web 2.0 technology.  They predict that the market for widgets will increase from a $29 million in 2007 to a staggering $340 million market by 2013.  That's an almost 12x increase in a 6 year period! 

These figures underscore the importance of NewsGator's increasing commitment to, and activity in, the fast-growing widget space.  We strongly believe that syndicating and widgetizing content using NewsGator widgets is crucial to your brand "owning the conversation." 

While the primary focus of this blog is on NewsGator widgets, from time to time we will highlight exciting NewsGator developments that may occur outside the confines of "widgetdom."  In this case, on the RSS side of things, an exciting new development has taken place.  We have partnered with AideRSS so that you can now sort your NewsGator Online feeds using their intelligent PostRank technology.

To learn more about this exciting addition to NewsGator's already super-cool RSS technology, check out the blog post by Jeff Nolan (VP of NewsGator's Saas).  Or check out Mike Gunderloy's blog post on Web Worker Daily.    

Play around with it on NewsGator Online and let us know what you think!