You know that I'm always excited about new widgets, but I'm particularly excited about the brand new type of content distribution model called reverse syndication that NewsGator and our media clients are embarking on. (For an excellent introduction to reverse syndication, I highly recommend you read Jeff Jarvis' excellent post on the topic.)  We're in the process of launching "Across the Field" widgets with 32 online newspapers to cover NFL games this fall and winter.  The details are fairly complicated but I hope you'll stay with me because when you learn the new territory we're charting, think you'll be rightly impressed. 

NewsGator is building widgets for a consortium of 32 online papers -- one for each team in the NFL.  While the newspapers are not necessarily owned by the same companies, they've decided to share high quality content with one another in a novel way. Essentially, we're talking about the atomization of content -- where, esentially, content is broken up into many pieces and distributed (often standalone) across the web; in this case, the online newspapers we're parterning with are atomizing their content through NewsGator widgets. (For an excellent introduction to atomization of content, check out PR Squared's post on the subject.)

The best way to explain is through a real-life example: this week the Pittsburgh Steelers are set to play the New York Giants. Leading up to the game, the New York Daily News's website has a widget on their sports/football page with content on the opposing team -- in this case the Pittsburgh Steelers -- from The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  And the reverse would be true as well: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has content from The New York Daily News on the Giants on their sports page.  In essence, they're shared bits of atomized content in the form of opposition scouting reports from in the inside lines of the competitor's 'camp.'

The theory behind this specfic setup is that each online paper already has plenty of content about their home team already but much less (if any) about the opposing team; enter, stage right, the "Across the Field" widgets providing insight on the competitors' teams. (The content in the widget will change weekly along with the game schedule.)  Even better, while the content feeding these widgets is full text RSS from the opposing team's local newspaper, when visitors to The New York Daily News click on articles about the Pittsburgh Steelers within the widget on website, they will remain on The New York Daily News site; they are not leaving the "home" newspaper's site -- courtesy some fancy coding footwork -- which increases the "stickiness" of each paper's content offerings.

What do media clients get out of this?  A lot.  Online newspapers get (atomized) high quality content from the opposing team's local newspaper -- probably more knowledgeable than anyone; even better, these stories are hosted on their own site (leading to more page impressions) and they can place advertisements on the article pages to enhance monetization.  (Sort of a three-for-one deal.)

These "Across the Field" widgets, which represent the cutting edge of reverse content syndication & atomization of content, are a great example of some of the new and exciting directions NewsGator (and our partner clients) are proceeding in syndicating content in powerful new ways.  I'd say, from this vantage point, the future of widgets is quite bright.