At the moment our Technical Support Engineers here at NewsGator Media & Consumer Products are fast at work on a new blog that will specifically addresses issues of a more technical nature regarding widget development and deployment; I'll let you know as soon as it launches -- which should happen any day now.

In the mean time, I wanted point your attention to a new article in our Widgets Wiki.  (If you're not already familiar with this Wiki, you should check it out as it is a valuable source of tips, information, and tricks maintained by our aforementioned trusty Technical Support Engineers -- Dan & Jenny.)

This article in the Wiki will walk you through how to put HTML into an RSS post, because sometimes as a widget publisher you need to format your posts to be something other than just a string of text.  Maybe you have some data that you want to present in a table, or maybe you just want to provide a link to another webpage.  In any case, this Wiki Article will show you how!

NewsGator Media & Consumer Products tracks a veritable ton of data every day.  That data, among many other applications, helps us to track how individual clients are doing in terms of their widget strategy and performance.  Every month several of us sit down and go through the past month's "numbers." 

Earlier in the month we reviewed our August numbers.  We put particular focus on widgets that experienced noteworthy upward movement in some of the metrics we track -- such as views, interaction, click throughs, etc.  Then we complied a list of best practices that reflect the basis for the positive changes we noticed in these particular widgets. 

Below, the list:

• put your widgets on article pages and areas to which they are related
• keep it simple; don't make widgets that try to do 'everything'
• plan ahead when launching time sensitive or seasonal widgets
• don't hide your widgets -- or content -- in your widget
• if the widget has tabs for different areas of content, consider an auto-rotate
• use animation conservatively and thumbnails liberally
• give your inheritors more than they expect
• if you have a network, use it

If you can't tell as per my previous two posts, we're really excited about these highly interactive sports widgets that we built for TMS.  I had a chance to sit down with Doug Furcht, a Software Engineer for NewsGator's Media & Consumer Products, to talk about some of the (fairly complex) technical issues behind these new widgets as well as a few other topics. Here's our conversation:

• Josh: These sports widgets seem to be some of the most complex we've done before. What were some of the challenges in building them?
• Doug: Probably the largest obstacle was just getting familiar with someone else's data. Everything in these widgets are driven by the data coming from TMS -- lists of sports, all teams for those sports, and all schedules for those teams. It's a lot of data and it's difficult to work with until you've got your head around it.

• Josh: This is one of our first customizable widgets in the sense that you can add your own teams to track.  How are one's selections 'saved'?
• Doug: Yes, you can add any team from any league that the widget is configured to show. The users selections are saved locally in a persistent cookie.

• Josh: What's a feature you're particularly proud of developing?
• Doug: I'm particularly pleased with the vast number of configuration options and the ease in which these options can be configured. All of this is achieved through a management console where the widget's settings are defined -- such as local teams, local television stations, ad placements, etc. The console then builds a special block of code (the widget) based on these settings.

• Josh: Are there any new technical aspects you've learned from creating these widgets that you can apply to future ones?
• Doug: The TrimPath templating engine that lies at the core of widget framework is very powerful and the knowledge I now have about how it works will be useful in future products.

• Josh: Are you happy with the end result?
• Doug: In retrospect there are things I would have done differently during development (as there always are) but I'm really excited about how this project turned out.

• Josh: Finally, since these are sports widgets we're talking about, I have to ask you what your favorite teams are to watch.
• Doug: I prefer to play Ultimate Frisbee.  But, if I had to watch sports on TV, it would have to be either the Nuggets or the Dolphins.

Kari Rippetoe has an interesting post up on her site, The Caffeinated Blog, about the online marketing value of widgets. 

Right away she nails the upside/value-proposition of many widgets for site visitors: "people like getting something of value for free...give them a cool widget with something really fun or really useful, and you've got new customers."  While I don't think it's quite that simple, she gets the fact that widgets must add value to a users' experience on a site in order to be of value for your business.

Kari then discusses some questions you should have in mind when deciding whether widgets can help with your marketing goals.  Some specific goals, I might add, could include extending your brand's reach, enhancing interaction rates with visitors, increasing ad revenue, and more.

Here are five questions (in my own words) that Kari says you should mull over before deciding to launch widgets:

• What type of content would you put in the widget(s)?
• Would your audience be receptive to widgets?
• How would widgets benefit your business/marketing goals?
• What type of development help would you need?
• How will you market your widget after launch?

These are all good points that Kari makes.  Can you come up with other considerations that should be added to the list?  If so, put them in the comments.  You can read her full post here.

Two weeks from today, Jeff Nolan, VP of NewsGator Consumer & Media Products, will be attending the Online Market World event in San Francisco. While Jeff won't actually be speaking -- though it looks like there will be a slew of interesting speakers -- he will be attending sessions on behalf of NewsGator.  So, if you'd like to talk with Jeff while you're at the event, feel free to shoot me a line at joshl@newsgator.com and I'll pass it on to him.

There should be several other appearances by NewsGator folks at other events of this nature this later in October; I'll let you know when I have more information.

I sometimes like to talk about NewsGator goings-on outside of the Media and Consumer space, which I normally cover.  I especially like to mention cool news like the popularity of NewsGator's own native iPhone RSS reader application, NetNewsWire.

Here are some statistics that I think are pretty interesting:

• There are over 200,000 users of NetNewsWire for iPhone
• Over 115,000 iPhone users have signed up in the past 30 days
• The average NetNewsWire iPhone user subscribes to 26 feeds
• One NetNewsWire/iPhone user has over 2,800 feeds -- wow!
• More than 130 million items have been marked read by NNW/iPhone users

If you have an iPhone and haven't yet gotten your NetNewsWire action on, you can get it for free at the iPhone application store or learn more about it here.

(There are also a number of other RSS reader choices that NewsGator offers; you can see them here.)

A cool story today regarding Tribune Media Services (TMS) & NewsGator Widgets.  TMS has launched an entire line of brand new sports widgets to sell to online newspapers; all of these widgets are powered by NewsGator.  These widgets will provide allow visitors to local newspapers' websites to keep up-to-date on the TV game schedule for all major professional and college team sports. Wow!  Talk about comprehensive.

NewsGator created a Baseball on TV widget earlier this year for them as a test case.  They were happy with the widget's impact -- which did things like increase viral host views, offsite page views, offsite interaction, and brand reach -- and decided to launch an entire line of sports TV widgets to include all pro & college sports and teams.  NewsGator created all of the sports widgets, which:

• provide local ad inventory for newspapers
• quickly and easily integrate into a newspaper's website
• are viral so can go to many different places on the web
• provide flexible setup options to account for home teams, TV markets, etc.

TMS will now sell these widgets to affiliate newspapers to enable their online sites to become a one-stop local market leader in online sports TV information.  We'll let you know as soon as some of these widgets launch.  In the coming months, if you see a localized TV sports widget on an online newspaper, there's a good chance it's powered by NewsGator.

You can view the full press release here.

There's an excellent article by Liza Hausman up on iMediaConnection titled "Build a Widget on a Budget."  Though the over-arching theme of the piece is that building widgets need not be a cost-prohibitive enterprise (which is true), there are some excellent "goals and parameters" -- I might call best practices -- relating to widgets. 

I'd like to paraphrase, in my own words, some of the good advice she provides, as well as add some points and advice which form the backbone of our strategy here at NewsGator Widgets. 

1. It seems like a no-brainer, but before you create any widgets, have a distinct goal in mind.  Or, as we tell our clients, do not develop a "widget strategy"; instead, determine if widgets help you achieve existing objectives and goals in your marketing plan.  If they do, use them.  For instance, are you looking to extend the reach of your brand?  Monetize content?  Reach the social web? 
2. Determine, and know, your target audience.  Is your widget a social/entertainment widget, or is it more of a utility widget?  Are you trying to reach people on Facebook or readers of online business journals?  As Liza says, "identify where your target audience is spending their time and choose the appropriate widget type."
3. Know that you can make widgets relatively inexpensively.  In fact, NewsGator's Editor's Desk widget creation platform is completely free!  (Click here to get started.)
4. Timing is important! As we tell our customers, plan ahead when launching time-sensitive or seasonal widgets.
5. Are there specific maintenance requirements?  Will the widget have to be changed or updated (internally) to keep it relevant?  Does the feed update automatically?  Is it updated frequently enough to maintain engagement?  You should have all of these questions in mind.
6. Do you have the appropriate resources available to successfully create and launch a widget campaign?  Once again, our free, extremely easy to use, Editor's Desk platform enters center stage here.
7. Finally, what type of content are you going to use in the widget?  Text only?  Videos?  Pictures?  At NewsGator, we recommend that our clients mash up multiple data types/media whenever possible to make the widget more engaging.  What about advertising?  Have you considered co-branding?

While this is not meant to be a comprehensive list of "everything" you need to take into consideration when thinking about widgets, if you consider the above issues, you'll have excellent footing for starting a widget campaign.

Do you have any additional advice to provide would-be widget creators?  Or do you have any questions about these tips?  Leave them in the comments section!

I'd like to point your attention to a freshly updated feature that is sure to enhance your experience with NewsGator Widgets.  We have a public Wiki page with a wealth of helpful information covering everything from best practices, to widget authoring, to widget tips & tricks and widget reporting.

Our Technical Support Engineers have been hard at work recently, adding new content to the Wiki that is sure to help you get the most out of NewsGator Widgets.  Be sure to check out this helpful resource!

If you have any suggestions for additions to the Wiki, leave them in the comments section.  And if you have issues that are not covered in the Wiki, you may send an email to our support team: plsupport@newsgator.com

Happy Widgeting!