I thought I'd try something entirely new for today's post and ask what you -- the readers of this blog -- would like to see here. I try to keep the blog as widget-centric as possible, but I'd love to hear suggestions for topics you'd like me to cover. Or do you have any questions related to NewsGator widgets, or widgets in general, that I may be able to address here? Please leave topic suggestions, questions, or comments in the...errr...comment section. And thanks for stopping by.
One of the most powerful aspects of NewsGator widgets are the
analytics and tracking data that come with them. NewsGator allows you
to build widgets that are highly portable – and can be shared on
websites, blogs, personal homepages or social networks. Your widgets
can even be integrated with external ad and analytics servers, allowing
you to monetize them based on how often people view and interact with
them.
To
view the analytics data, click on the "statistics" tab on the upper
left portion of the home screen in Editor's Desk. This page is designed to give you an
overview of how your widgets are performing. You’ll see a list of all
widgets in your account on the left panel, with empty check boxes next
to them. To view the data, all you need to do is check the boxes next
to the widgets; the data shows up on the right panel.
The following statistics are available:
page views
impressions
click throughs
other interactions
(You can find a detailed guide to getting the most out of NewsGator analytics data here.)
It's not only neat to find out where your widget has spread across the social web, but keeping an eye on your analytics data also gives you more information about what may or may not be working within your widget strategy.
If you missed NewsGator's webinar on our free Olympics widgets (through our partnership with AFP) that provide media companies with guaranteed ad revenue, then I recommend you listen to a recording of it that we've made available for anyone to access here.
The webinar will provide you with the following information:
How to quickly take advantage of the co-branded widgets
How the $0.20 CPM guarantee works
What minimal resources are required
How to easily & quickly add content to your site
How your organization can distribute its content to new online locations
So if you're at all interested in learning about these opportunities, take a listen here.
Several of us here at NewsGator Widgets, including myself, teamed up to create a video introducing you to the power of NewsGator widgets. The video is short (around 3 minutes) and gives an excellent overview of what tools we offer at NewsGator to quickly and easily allow you to create, track and manage widgets that can increase your brand's reach, engagement with viewers, and ad revenue. Check it out!
Another day, another new Olympics widget to share with you! Yesterday I highlighted DenverPost.com's new Olympics widget powered by NewsGator; today you can check out USATODAY.com's new Olympics widget. This widget features USA TODAY content for the Beijing 2008 Olympic games. Note that this is not related to the AFP Olympics widget campaign, but it still represents a significant step forward in the paper's investment in NewsGator's widget framework.
First off, this is the first widget that USATODAY.com places not only in their widget gallery, but also in sub-sections like this one. Why is this important? NewsGator always tells our customers to put category-specific widgets on article pages that match the widget's content so that they can generate a high amount of exposure, interaction with, and placement of the widget. Experience tells us that views, click throughs and inheritors will be considerably higher for the widget when it is placed on article pages (than simply in a catch-all widget gallery).
In addition, this becomes the sixth USA TODAY which has been monetized to generate ad revenue; they've now launched 10 widgets that employ the NewsGator Widget Framework. Check out the widget (to the right), and if you like it, add it to your blog or startpage. Enjoy!
Earlier in the month we announced that we were partnering with AFP to provide free, co-branded Olympics widgets to media clients with a guaranteed CPM of $0.20.
Well, the first fruits of this partnership are visible on The Denver Post's online site. (The widget is yellow and is located on the right sidebar of the page.)
A couple neat things to point out: first, this widget is monetized on presentation; the ad just below goes wherever the widget goes. Also, because this is a co-branded widget, the links within it drive traffic back to The Denver Post'sonline site, where users can get the full text of the article. This is great for DenverPost.com, as they get to sell ads around the content.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the widget is viral. Since the widget always links content back to The Denver Post, they are happy that their audience can take the widget with them (to place wherever they like on the start pages, blogs, etc.)
The beauty of this setup is that DenverPost.com, AFP, and NewsGator all benefit from this arrangement: ad revenue is being made every time the widget is viewed as well as when someone clicks on it and this ad revenue is shared with DenverPost.com as well as AFP.
If you'd like to learn more about NewsGator's free Olympic widget platform that guarantees $0.20 CPM, click here.
There is no doubt that widgets are emerging as an excellent integration mechanism for third party services and the disaggregation of portals and media. NewsGator widgets provide content and advertising that is relevant to advertisers, media, and viewers of the widget. Because of this, they are also big traffic multipliers.
For example, let's say you are a media company and you decide to place your best content into a widget. Let's then say that this widget, hypothetically, receives 200,000 views a day on your site. If you make the widget viral, people carry carry this content to wherever they want on the web (which will be even easier now that we've partnered with Gigya).
Now say, again hypothetically, that this widget gets 5,000 placements (i.e., other locations on the social web). This would lead to 1 million additional page views -- a huge multiplying effect that will increase brand exposure, boost your engagement and reach with viewers, enhance advertising/revenue potential, and drive additional site traffic.
Hot on the heels of last week's announcement of NewsGator offering co-branded Olympics widgets to media companies with guaranteed revenue of $0.20 CPM comes another exciting piece of new for us.
We're happy to announce this morning that we are integrating Gigya’s Wildfire distribution and tracking technology into our network of syndication widgets. This partnership will provide media clients the ability to distribute content to three times more start pages/social sites than at present, a streamlined process for content syndication, as well as provide sophisticated tracking.
Our integration with Gigya will allow for enhanced growth and scalability of our content syndication network and will increase viral distribution channels, allowing for new monetization opportunities. Anytime a user clicks on “Get This” on any NewsGator widget they’ll see Gigya’s advanced sharing screen, allowing them to add the widget to some 25 separate places on the web (up from the current 8). In addition, this integration will support both HTML as well as Flash widgets.
As Jeff Nolan, VP of NewsGator Widget & Data Services explains, "by partnering with Gigya, we enable our top tier media clients to distribute their content to audiences on top social networks, blog platforms, and desktop platforms -- and as their audience grows the opportunity for advertising revenue also grows."
NewsGator is energized about integrating with Gigya and we know that it will further enhance the appeal, reach, and monetization potential of our rapidly growing widget network.
From time to time I will cover topics that are not explicitly widget related, since there are so many moving parts at NewsGator (enterprise sales, social intranets/extranets, RSS readers, widgets, data services, etc.)
Back in April I explained that we were partnering with AideRSS so that you could sort your NewsGator Online feeds using their intelligent PostRank technology -- an easy way for RSS subscribers to reduce extraneous information by ranking stories on the level of social engagement. A NewsGator RSS reader can assign a PostRank score of 1 to 10 to indicate a relative measure of engagement with that item across the internet, allowing readers to influence what they are reading.
Now AideRSS has issued something they call Thematic PostRank, which allows for further customization based on themes or topics of personal interest. In short, Thematic PostRank allows a RSS subscriber to group articles from disparate sources based on specific topics, and then ranks these posts against each other based on social engagement; this provides even more powerful and targeted indication of social relevance.
As Jeff Nolan, VP of NewsGator Widget & Data Services, explains, "Thematic Ranking in PostRank gives users a more focused and personalized experience. Grouping and ranking posts based on themes of interest allows the kind of customization that takes RSS reading to a new level."
So there you have it: our partnership with AideRSS now, more than ever, will enhance your RSS reading satisfaction.
DMNews has an interview with Chris Johnson, VP of content & biz dev at Hearst Digital Media, on how widgets drive web readership. It is a worthwhile read.
He says, at Hearst, that they monitor conversion rate of views vs referrals, measuring referrals "as a click on somebody else's site that drives them to our site."
For reference, Editor's Desk, (NewsGator's widget creation and management system) allows you to track descendants (all sites that have taken the widget to their site using the "get this" function); impressions, click-throughs, as well as other interactions, and more.
Also, look for some NewsGator-specific news coming out of DMNews next week!
