USA.gov apparently is not the only government site making the major (and overdue?) leap into the modern Web 2.0 world by adding more accessible, interactive and sharable content and features such as news aggregators, widgets, tag clouds, and the like to their site.  I read on Slate's "Big Money" blog today, in an post rather interestingly called, "Social Media Saves Lives," that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, CDC.gov, is making many of these same moves.

Or, as Dan Mitchell, the author of the post, says, the CDC,

"is getting all Web 2.0 on us with a "Social Media Page" that provides all kinds of tools—ranging from highly useful to quite silly—for tracking information about the peanut recalls.  The page...includes blogs, databases of recalled products, widgets of various kinds for outside bloggers to use, links to YouTube channels, podcasts, links to Twitter feeds and the like."

It's encouraging to know that multiple government sites are finally beginning to embrace the social media web world by making their content more accessible, interactive, and shareable -- in other words, er...Web 2.0-able.  I hope to see this trend continue not just on national government sites but also on more regional & local ones too. (You may recall, for instance, an earlier post on this blog where I explained, and applauded, the fact that Schwarzenegger, on the California US Governor's page, has begun to implement widgets an the like).

Perhaps Steve Rubel's recent post on Micro Persuasion, titled "All Media is Social, All Social is Media" is all the more apropros.   

Last week I told you the cool news that USA.gov has adopted NewsGator technology and expertise to create RSS breaking news and information feeds on their website. The tie-up has been receiving some good publicity, and I wanted to point you to a couple of articles on this news.

ReadWriteWeb has a story called "USA.gov Embraces RSS: Launches Breaking News Service."  It's worth a read.

Also, Information Week published a story today titled, "Feds' Internet Site Goes Web 2.0."  It quotes Beverly Godwin, the director of USA.gov's Web Best Practices division as saying, "using these Web 2.0 tools is a huge opportunity for government to be transparent and save valuable tax dollars. Tools such as RSS feeds and gadgets allow the public to directly access content from the original source, no matter which Web site they're on. It reduces duplication across government because an agency creates content once and makes it available for reuse by others."

We're just excited that the "Feds," as that second article refers to them, chose NewsGator to implement the technical challenges behind their entrance to Web 2.0.  Welcome, I say. :)

Last month, I wrote a post about the future of widgets and their potential applications in the field of education.  I concluded that the future looks bright for widgets (in the educational arena).  Well, today I see that "PBS Teachers" is introducing something they're calling activity packs, which are widgets offering digital content focused around specific educational themes. Or, as they are calling them, a "growing library of Web-based widgets that contain links to high-quality PBS education resources and activities focused on a specific curricular theme for multiple grade levels."

Somehow I have a feeling that this won't be the last we hear of various educational venues increasing their usage and application of widgets.  Not by a long shot. 

You can read the full release here.

Today I stumbled upon a great commentary piece, written by Donna Barrett and Randy Siegel, that appears in Editor & Publisher.  Since newspapers represent a substantial base of clients for NewsGator's Media & Consumer products, and since nearly every day recently we hear of another newspaper either on its death bed, or being shuttered all together -- along with some seemingly sounding the death knell of the entire industry -- I think what the authors have to say here is hugely relevant in the current climate.  The premise of their article is this,

"Sure, newspaper companies face serious challenges. But we also have serious opportunities to re-engineer ourselves as quality content creators for local print and online audiences that advertisers still desire."

The authors go on to say that,

"well-run newspaper companies will succeed by fighting hard, experimenting and evolving while tuning out those armchair critics who revel in the thought of a society without newspapers or news."

But what most caught my eye is one of their most important suggestions for how they believe newspapers can survive, and even thrive, in the future:

"Newspapers can increase their revenues and reach by investing in more content creation for different audiences, not less. The more compelling articles and information a newspaper and its website can offer, the longer readers and online users will be engaged. The longer consumers are engaged, the more exposure they will have to ads in print and online. The more attention the ads receive, the better the advertisers’ responses typically will be and the more those ads will be worth."

This description, almost uncannily, describes precisely what we're doing for media companies here at NewsGator!

First, by widgetizing content you are, indeed "investing in more content creation" and making this content highly portable across the entire social web.  Also, since widgets have been shown to enhance engagement rates, time on site, brand equity, etc. this fits right into the authors' point that the longer the consumers are engaged, then the more exposure they will have to ads -- which in turn helps newspapers' bottom lines.  And every single NewsGator widget is "advertisable."  In fact, we just announced our highly sophisticated Ad Burner optimization program that can seamlessly do just that.

Finally, two other product offerings from NewsGator also enhance content creation as well as reader engagement: our related content widgets, as well as our branded iPhone applications based off NewsGator's highly successful NetNewsWire application.

I encourage you to read their entire article here, but my take-away message here is that majority of the pertinent recommendations the authors make here in terms of newspapers enhancing & increasing content, enhancing readers' engagement with that content (which leads to higher ad revenue) are exactly what all of our offerings -- whether it be regular widgets, related content widgets, branded iPhone applications, our AdBurner program, or our data service offerings -- are designed to do.  There may be a down economy, and newspapers and media companies are no doubt struggling, but that just makes NewsGator products all the more important.      

NewsGator founder and CTO, Greg Reinacker, has posted his thoughts about the current state of RSS as it relates to enterprise business.  He is probably more knowledgeable about this subject than anyone out there, so his post is definitely worth reading.   His conclusion:

"RSS use in the enterprise is definitely alive and well, but it’s not in the obvious places."

You can read the entire post here.

Today NewsGator is announcing the creation of a brand new online advertising program called AdBurner.  AdBurner is a turnkey advertising solution, which optimizes ad placement, management, and revenue across any platform.  This program is the result of an impressive collaboration with the following partners: Technorati, Admeld, Gigya, Medialets, and Tremor Media.

Adburner is aimed at optimizing the CPM for, and process of, inserting and managing advertising into NewsGator's publisher products suite, including services as diverse as widgets, related content, and iPhone applications.  What makes this initiative especially exciting is that it's built around the best of breed advertising partners mentioned above.   

The premise behind our creation of AdBurner is the realization that a significant roadblock for media companies attempting to monetize social media and mobile applications has been the lack of process standards and optimization methods for inserting and tracking ad placements.  NewsGator's announcement today brings welcome relief to media clients struggling with explosive ad inventory growth and literally hundreds of online ad networks complementing their own internal ad sales efforts.

With AdBurner, NewsGator's premium publisher clients can choose to monetize via high value display ads, video pre-roll and overlays, widget ads, and iPhone display ads through an integrated process engine and a single management console.   And, in addition to managing ad units inserted into products that NewsGator provides to publishers, the process integration extends to unrelated online ad inventory. 

According to JB Holston, NewsGator's CEO, our clients have told us that "lack of inventory is not the problem they have, it's selling the inventory they already control along with the additional inventory we are creating for them."   He adds that, "what we're providing to them are pre-packaged integrated ad placement scenarios that can be used across a range of products, covers all of our inventory, and does so in a manner that is fully transparent and optimized to deliver the highest ad value per placement."

I'd like to pass along reaction from our partners on this AdBurner initiative:

• Technorati's CEO, Richard Jalichandra, says, "this initiative aligns Technorati's clients with news from a variety of sources across the tail to be delivered in innovative ways to their online readers.  NewsGator brings a top tier client list and proven media syndication technology that is a perfect fit for Technorati Media.
• Admeld's CEO, Michael Barrett, adds, "we are very pleased to be working with NewsGator and their high quality publishing partnership. [This] partnership will drive higher revenue for participating publishers."
• Gigya's VP of Sales & Biz Dev, Ben Pashman, says that "monetization is a major challenge for publishers of distributed content, so we're pleased to be working with NewsGator to deliver comprehensive widget monetization solutions to their publisher clients."
• Medialet's CEO, Eric Litman, says that "Medialets is excited to work with NewsGator on this program...and we're looking forward to providing the premier mobile advertising solution for NewsGator's clients."
• Tremor Media's CEO, Jason Glickman, explains that "Tremor Media & NewsGator have been working together to delieve rhigh quality, high value video pre-roll to NewsGator cleints" and that "this initiative builds on the success we have had with NewsGator around delivering video monetization for widgets and non-viral distributions by offering our respective publishers a compelling pre-integrated approach to monetization of their inventory."

Our AdBurner program is available immediately for existing NewsGator clients. 

As a final note, I'd like to say how delighted we are to be working with such an impressive group of ad partners as Technorati, Admeld, Gigya, Medialets and Tremor Media in creating AdBurner. 

I've talked a lot about our new Related Content Service on this blog, but have you actually had a chance to experience it live, in the flesh?  If not, you should play around with it on this site.  Why?  Because it's really cool, and I think you'll agree with me in a moment.  The related content feature works best on individual posts as opposed to the front/home page of a site since the engine scans the text on a page, and, in this case, there are a lot of different topics I cover here so it would be hard to distill one or two topics.

The real utility of the offering is on a individual post basis.  For example, my post yesterday was titled, "Quick Link: The Widget is Not a Strategy?"   If you look at the related content widget on the right sidebar of the post, you'll see  5 posts from other sources that are contextually related to the content in my post; in addition, the related content engine has intelligently discovered the best overall topic label for my post is "marketing," which you'll see in orange letters at the bottom of the widget.

Let me give you another example to drive home how cool this feature is.  I wrote a post earlier in the week called, "A Widget onto the Future?" which discussed the potential for using widgets for educational purposes. If you look at the related content widget, (once again, on the right sidebar) you'll see that our related content service has intelligently picked 5 posts that are contextually relevant to my post and has also, automatically, deemed that my post covers the topics "education" & "teaching."

Pretty neat, eh?  If you're interested in learning more about this feature, which can be "turned on" for your Editor's Desk account, please contact me at joshl@newsgator.com.

In an exciting development, TIME has named NewsGator's NetNewsWire one of the top 10 iPhone applications of the year!  I would like to congratulate Brent Simmons – the creator of NetNewsWire.  (If you're not familiar with NetNewsWire, it is a free native iPhone application based on the market-leading, critically-acclaimed RSS feed reader for Mac.) Here's what TIME had to say:

"There's no better way to keep up with your daily perambulations on the Net than via an RSS reader, which basically pushes content from any website or blog to your computer in a format that resembles email. NetNewsWire is one of the best free programs for computers, allowing you to easily subscribe to any feed and synchronizing what you've read across any computers you use. This app adds your iPhone to the party, allowing you to read perfectly formatted text on demand, as well as offline."

This is high praise for a product all of us at NewsGator are proud of us, especially given that it syncs with NewsGator’s suite of RSS readers, including NetNewsWire for Macintosh, FeedDemon, Inbox, and NewsGator Online - providing users a lightweight, easy application to keep up with feeds on the go.

If you have an iPhone and consume RSS feeds, you should download a free version today!

If you swing on over to our NewsGator Technical Blog, you'll find a truly elucidating post about our related content widgets from our technical support engineers. 

You'll learn, among other things, how the widget actually finds related content -- with crucial help from our friends over at mSpoke, the best locations to place these widgets, and ensuring that your widget gets the highest quality related content.  They also, quite helpfully, troubleshoot a few potential stumbling blocks you might encounter along the way.

It's definitely a must read if you're interested in our related content offerings.  Read the whole post here.

I'm excited to announce a new feature set that we're offering here at NewsGator: Related Content.  As Walker Fenton, GM of NewsGator's Media & Data Services, asks quite simply, "why leave readers wanting more when you can actually give them more, automatically, and keep them on your site and clicking through?"  Of course, you wouldn't in an ideal world, and here is where our related content offerings come into play.

We are offering two different types of related content features:

• A related stories widget that offers readers headlines for stories they may be interested in.  It works quite simply: when they click on a headline, a fly-out window appears with the opening paragraphs of each story; another click reveals the full article, and ads can be embedded at every turn.
• A related topics page which automatically presents contextually related topics to readers as key words.  Readers click on the key word of interest and are redirected to a page of stories relevant to the key word.

Both of these related content services have multiple benefits:

• they get readers more engaged with your site's content
• they generate additional ad revenue for you
• they enhance SEO by expanding content, providing another channel to gain readership and increase page views
• the services also eliminate publishers' reliance on traditional paid news sources

But the related content widgets are only as good as the content behind them, right?  Well, bet you didn't know this: every day we add 8.5 million new articles to our database, indexing and aggregating 3.6 million different feeds and archiving 4 years of content!  This huge database of content -- in fact, the industry's largest such repository of free content -- a result of our pioneering RSS reading/delivery services, is offered to publishers who wish to supplement their own content with related stories from 3rd parties. We even track more than 44 million "relevance events" in this activity, ensuring related content is truly relevant!  It's quite simple: the more content to draw from, and the better indexed that is, the better the related content supplied by our widget offerings.

What's more, publishers have control over their widgets' look and feel, search action, and content sources through our existing Editor's Desk platform; this makes it quick and effortless to build, manage, and track these new related content widgets. And we also offer flexibility in pricing for our related content services: hosted (transaction based) and free (ad supported with revenue-sharing).

You can read more about our related content offering here.  Or, read the official press release here.

Even better, you can sign up for our upcoming, FREE WEBINAR on this exciting new offering here.