Fraser from Adaptive Blue has a great post up on their blog that further expounds upon a topic from last week's Widget Web Expo.  The post debunks the largely incorrect, outdated notion regarding widgets that "if you build it they will come."

He says, for instance, that "Widgets have been sold as a way to achieve broad distribution easily. The sale has been that slapping a “copy me” button onto the widget = viral distribution. Unfortunately this simplistic equation neglects important other factors that influence the ability of a widget to promote itself, encouraging replication and duplication across the web." 

The solution he suggests is making sure that viral widgets have solid value for the publisher, value for the site visitor (encouraging engagement and interaction) and ease of replication.

Click here to read the excellent, full post.