comScore Launches Web Widget Tracker

Online audience measurement agency comScore, has launched its comScore Widget Metrix to track the usage of widgets across the web and drive advertising on social media.

Web widgets are files that can be embedded into a site's HTML code, and are often displayed in a small viewing pane. They are used to post customised or personalised content – such as movie trailers, photo slide shows and music playlists – to blog sites, or social networking profiles.

comScore says its research shows that consumers are increasingly interacting with this type of broadband content: in April, nearly 178 million people viewed web content made with these widgets. The firm believes it is one of the first to measure the reach of widget-producers like Slide, RockYou, and PictureTrail.

'The recent explosion of user-generated content has helped create a worldwide marketplace for widgets, said Linda Boland Abraham, Executive VP at comScore. 'A year ago hardly anyone knew what a widget was.'

Hooman Radfar, founder of widget delivery platform Clearspring added: 'Measuring and understanding the widget universe is an important first step in enabling publishers and advertisers to fully realise the benefits of the burgeoning distributed web.'

In comScore's analysis of the top ten web widgets RockYou took second place behind Slide with 82 million viewers, PictureTrail came in third with 31 million viewers, and Photobucket attracted 28 million viewers.

The firm recently announced its plans to go public (www.mrweb.com/drno/news6633.htm ) and is currently submitting to a third-party audit of its measurement processes (www.mrweb.com/drno/news6703.htm ). It is online at www.comscore.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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