It's kinda fun thinking about Widgets the way we think about things what we grab and you can Grab Widgets (and measure them too) according to WidgetGirl who authors Widget Analytics in the Wild blog.
“…People love these phrases - “grab my widget”, “he grabbed my widget”, “they grabbed the widget”….or any derivation thereof. This is why I am thinking we need to just take the term “placements” (which will still have it’s place in the Clearspring lexicon) and call them “Grabs” when it denotes a visitor performing an action to create a new placement of a widget. It is a verb, right? Once those placements (or Grabs) are being actively viewed by visitors, we can then defer back to just calling them “placements.”
Now, all we need is for someone to create a business card with a link to a customized Widget for that person and a byline "Please grab my Widget". Or, what you do with my widget once you grab it is you own business.
It seems to me every time I grab the code to embed a widget it's measured and it's probably the single most important engagement metric for widgets - because that says someone is committed enough to copy the code and hopefully place it somewhere.
Hi Marshall,
Keep in mind that you don't always have to get the embed code (unless you are posting on your own blog of course). The main thing that widget serving platforms (like Clearspring) bring to the table is the ability to use the sharing services for one to two click posting. And we do measure every time you grab the code - but we require that it be viewed at least once before we count it as a grab and start measuring it as a new placement. It is a critical step in ensuring that analytics are not overstated.
Cheers! Jodi
Posted by: Jodi McDermott | February 26, 2008 2:22 PM | Permalink to Comment