I could start with a whole host of alliterated comments here when waxing about widgets. Where’s Waldo, Where in the World… and of course the World Wide Web of Widgets all come to mind, you know for a short chuckle, a cheap thrill. Easy humor, the kind the kids crack up at. Little Willie’s wooden whistle wouldn’t
whistle.  But come on, we’re not in kids anymore. Or are we?

What strikes me most about widgets is their truly child-like, or maybe I should say child-friendly qualities. But what exactly is it about widgets that make me start craving peanut butter
and banana sandwiches and big tall glass of Yoohoo!? No, not Yahoo! Yoohoo. —The drink, guys. Where has that
chocolate-y fizzy wonder gone?

Here’s why I think widgets are an invention sent from heaven as a ploy to keep us "young." 

• Everything about it is mini. And super-cute! Have you seen the ones in Vista?

• There is constantly updated information. The Feedburner Konfabulator, Weather, News. You name it, and it will be available, for up-to-the-second information for the kid in you that alwayas wants to know "Are we there yet?" Pretty soon they’ll have one for the backseat of cars with a mileage countdown to Granny’s.

• It’s all about POP-U-LAR-I-TY. And social interactions. From Comment Boxes to visitor visuals from places like My Blog Log, widgets are all about making the web a more integrated space, encouraging communication across all boundaries. Like the playground at recess.

So why do we care about these little suckers? The answer, according to Mediapost’s Dave Morgan, is that widgets "will give rise to citizen publishers, citizen syndicators and, most
important, citizen networks." Just as, he says, blogs gave rise to citizen journalism.

"Over time, I think, these will become commercial ad networks that will
rival the professional media-driven ones. They will become direct
distributors of large blocks of online advertising."

Six out of six comments below his article agree. But I’ll go ahead and play devil’s advocate here and say, perhaps not. Advertising can and will stay in the hands of the professionals. Not every blogger is a citizen journalist, or would even want to be considered as such. In the same way, widgets will be a useful tool for online interaction, but when it really comes down to monetizing them, it will be those that have network-wannabe written all over their website who take advantage of them.

Especially as new measurement tools develop. Venture Beat has a good comprehensive breakdown of the various widget traffic measurement companies out there, including Quantcast, which has made media news today as it announced  a free online video and widget audience measurement service. "Given the explosion [of online video and] widget use, the mandate is clear: If they want to
attract more advertising dollars, publishers must measure and
understand their video and widget audiences," says co-founder and CEO Konrad Feldman.

Connecting publishers and advertisers. What a good idea.

J. Walker Smith was so bold as to say in this week’s Media:
"The medium isn’t the message anymore, and
hasn’t been for quite a while: It’s the product that’s the message, and
the better that product is, the more people will talk about it."
Ouch! Look out, Marshall, you’ve got competition.

So, the product is your message, eh? But lemme put this one to ya, J. Walker: if something is so amazing that it can sell itself, then why do we have infomercials? Snap! Okay, kidding, you have a point. Listing the characteristics of a "product worth talking about" as:
truly innovative and original
memorable in some authentic and genuine way
intrinsic ties to experiences, non-verbal cues and multi-sensory engagement
gives people the opportunity to express themselves or to signal some aspect of status and position 
 …In other words, What Would Jesus Buy?

Though you’d have to ideally start with a product that has one or more of these qualities in order to succeed, we do not live in an ideal world, as proved by the relative extinction of the Brown Bear in Pakistan and Lebanon and the sleep quality of American children. So where do you go from there?

Answer: take advantage of the power of the conversation. Through peer-to-peer interaction, marketing messages can be processed first by one person (lame!) but then by a community of people (awesome!) Better yet, target the "influencers" offline, all 28 million of them – as discussed in this article on the eMarketer WOM Marketing report. Then expect that they’ll bring their interest back onto online conversations, through blogs, user reviews, chat rooms, video sites, Wikis, and the like.

Don’t forget the middle ground, though, says author Debra Aho Williamson. "…there is this vast middle ground of people
who are moderately influential, the ones who pass a video on to their
friends, or find a cool site and tell their husband." Or, ideally, find that cool product and spread the word, even if it’s just to their book club, golf partner, or dentist. It’s not easy to talk through those mouthguards, but they will find a way.

Henry Blodget airs his
opinion on the eBay acquisition of Kijiji, a classified listing site that,
due to the tragic nature of the name, I will heretofore refer to as “The Poor
Man’s Craigslist” – it’s okay, I refer to my dad as the poor man’s Harrison
Ford – or, to acronym it, “PMC.”

Noting that old-school style, newspaper print classifieds will
soon “seem as archaic as whale oil,” he predicts that the success of Monster
and Craigslist (20.6 million unique US-based visitors in May 2007) will likely prevent the retention of the classified ads business
as newspapers move online. In other words, they have a head start. Furthermore,
and in more fiery words, “Craigslist is run by socialists who appear to have no
interest in turning it into a real business [which means it] is likely to be free
or near-free in perpetuity.”

Really? Can you start political name-calling? Check
out the thread of comments that followed, ending in a comment that begins “Sigh.”
and ends with “Sometimes I wonder if you people all live in your parents’
basement or something…” You know what they say: He who laughs last, laughs.

For real, though, the argument at hand is, how long can
Craigslist be free, and how long can it go with no real competition? We’ve
heard the figures on its potential worth to advertisers, and we’ve heard pleas
for another listing site to pop up with “no junk.” No junk in the trunk? What
kind of classified ad would that be? I don’t know about you, but I can
manhandle the occasional mistake-click and should-be-flagged posting in
exchange for a free service. Although, the times they are a-changin’ and as
people learn to demand quality from their online experience, perhaps this will
change too.

But don’t put any money on Kijiji until they freakin’ change
their name. I mean, I doubt any of their 388,000 May visitors recognized the Swahili word for "village." And considering that eBay owns 25% of Craigslist and has now just served them up some competencia on a silver platter, I should say they should find the Swahili word for "shooting oneself in the foot."

3-9-9 bottles of beer on the wall, 3-9-9 bottles of beer,
Take one down, pass it around,
…3-9-8 bottles of beer on the wall.

If by bottles of beer I mean media companies, and by take one down I mean being acquired, then let’s all sing along, shall we?

But I didn’t say it. Matthew Schwartz of B2B did. Not in drinking shanty form, of course; just reporting the news of the study released yesterday from media investment bank Jordan Edmiston Group.

But 2-3-8 of these beer bottles – let’s call them the Fat Tire of the group – represent the online media sector with a combined value of $32 billion and 40% of the overall stack. (Did I say stack? I meant stacked.) Overall media deals rose $12.4% in the first half, but online media deals rose 20% with a value of $4.2 billion. And online landed 5 of the Top 10 deals in the overall media and information group. (See the full chart here.)

Numbers, numbers. I’m no analyst, but I can crunch those for you. It means that all those acquisitions – Microsoft-aQuantive, WPP-24/7, you know the rest – were not for nothing. Like a bundle of sticks, they are a strength that cannot be broken. (No, I didn’t get this proverb from my Native American grandmother. It was my soccer coach.)

On a less cheesy note, this data shows us that online media is being dragged into the general flow of major media M&A trends. They’re being snapped up because, well, they’re more valuable. I mean, what do you want to drink on a crisp summer afternoon in San Francisco? A PBR? Or a smooth, refreshing Fat Tire?

But maybe Tolman Geffs of JEGI said it better:

There isn’t such a thing as old media
anymore. There’s only
diversified media. Every major media company is working hard to reshape
their distribution model to reach new audiences, and that’s going to
take years to pan out.

Google-basher Michael Yavonditte of Quigo is featured in an
interview on WebMasterWorld
in a personal follow up of the announcement of the ad network’s deal with Time Inc., which is
expected to be worth more than $100 million over the next three years.

“We control the auction-based advertising on, gosh, close to
300 local sites,” he tells Brett
Tabke, almost bashfully, but when asked about the revenue from newspapers, admits that "frankly, [they are] a very small part of our
business – but a very important segment of our network, because it gives us
incredible reach into various local markets.” I’ll say.

Okay, so maybe not quite a Google-basher, but definitely
growing, albeit “quietly.” With their targeted AdSonar contextual advertising that
major players like ESPN, Fox News, and Cox Newspapers have switched to from
Google and Yahoo, and with a gold mine like Time Warner now in their pocket, the
future looks bright.

So bright, in fact, they gotta wear shades.