Last week, I spoke at a widget conference, WidgetWebExpo. The prior (and only other) time I’ve spoken at a conference on this topic was a year ago. At that time, widgets were just starting to get legs, so to speak, and we had just introduced a service to measure them, comScore Widget Metrix.

My over-arching reaction as I looked around one year later was “what a difference a year makes.” The conference a year ago was packed, and had a whole Gen-Y, very edgy feeling — held in an old movie theatre in SoHo; most of the attendees were very young, many dressed in shorts, t-shirts and baseball hats. There was a lot of energy, with a feeling that was closer to a frat party than a conference. On my panel, the speaker next to me proclaimed “the thing about widgets is…if you’re over 30, you just don’t get them.” Ahem. I am indeed well over 30. (Of course I took that to mean I must look very young :))

But to me, there were red flags. There was a lot of fun, cool applications, with no clear value proposition, and for most, no path to monetization. The general thinking was “get distribution, then we’ll worry about that.” I remember one talk where the CEO and founder of a company showed a very fun widget that allowed you to animate an image of yourself, and the audience loved it. Then, he asked the audience (rather somberly): “But who will pay me for this?” No one answered.

This was the state of the widget world at the time: lots of cool technology, and our numbers clearly showed that audiences were gobbling them up — not just in the US, but also abroad. People clearly liked the idea of distributed content — a little nugget they could grab and place in their space that delivered information, content, fun, or a combo of the three. However, with a few exceptions, that pesky little topic of how to actually make money in the space remained unanswered.

That is in stark contrast to this year’s conference. I recognized very few faces from last year. The attendees were fully clad in the usual business casual attire – but, not one baseball cap to be seen. The organizer/sponsor of last year’s conference is no longer in the widget business, and their executives have moved on to other companies. The community has also aged quite a bit — almost everyone in attendance was now over 30, many over 40. There were also many fewer attendees. Overall, the conference was ….. well, let’s just say there was nothing edgy about it.

Although they have changed the way many use the web, widgets clearly have not lived up to the hype they created a year ago. There are a lot of reasons why, including that pesky little problem of having to eventually make money, which has caused more than one of these companies to either fold or pivot and change direction. I learned that Facebook is moving all the widgets to a separate tab so that they don’t show up on the profile page. The term “de-widgetization’ was mentioned more than once. Even Fred Wilson, a big early supporter of widgets both as a user and an investor who spoke at the conference, discussed this in his blog, culminating in his proclamation that ‘widgets suck.’

And yet, VC money continues to flow into the space. According to an article in MarketWatch by Scott Austin, who is an assistant managing editor at VentureWire: “At least 12 start-ups that build or distribute widgets have raised $191 million so far this year, including RockYou, which earlier this week announced a $35 million round of funding.” Feels very circa 1999 to me.

Yet as I see it, something very important is being missed here, or at least not broadly understood. As marketers, it’s not often that we see an environment as we do with both search and distributed content, where we literally have people waving their arms, saying “Hey, over here! I’m interested in this subject/function/content/type of game, etc.” Talk about the opportunity to target!

It’s clear that widgets have demonstrated the potential to do three key things:

1. deliver a very coveted target to advertisers — people who skew younger (both male and female) as well as slightly older groups
   
2. reach an audience of global proportions, often in a very short timeframe
   
3. reach people at the time of engagement—capitalizing on the interest levels, emotional availability, etc.

Those are three very powerful characteristics. So my question is: why aren’t more of these widgets delivering advertising in some form?

Some of them are. I know that Slide, for example, includes advertising, although I have not seen it personally. A notable exception is Splashcast. They develop widgets for the likes of Nike that, based on IP address, will deliver localized widgets with in-language branding and content. That’s a great example, I think, of how to use this medium to reach and build a global audience that widgets can deliver. But I haven’t seen a lot of that.

Being with a measurement company, my bias is of course, that measurement could make an important contribution here. So here’s the project I’d love to do: an ad effectiveness study to quantify the difference in impact between ads delivered in widgets to those same ads delivered to that same target, using traditional placement strategies. For example, I’d like to compare the branding impact/clickthrough/engagement/conversion rates (pick any metric) for a photo-printing ad for Kodak, delivered via a photo-sharing widget as compared to that same ad delivered via a normal campaign. Would the effectiveness of the ads be greater when a young mom is looking at recent pictures of her kids than they would if she saw those ads on other sites while she was, for example, reading the news? What about Nike — will kids be more likely to click on the Nike ad and view the newest cool sneaks when they are engaging with the NCAA widget that delivers the most recent scores than they would on other sites?

I’m betting yes. And while it wouldn’t be a silver bullet for the widget industry, it would be a strong point of quantified value and differentiation that would allow widgets to plant their flag in the busy landscape of the media mix. Perhaps it would even bring back some of those young developers with big ideas in shorts and baseball caps. I miss them.

Juice Analytics, a comScore vendor, recently prepared an intriguing treemap of the Internet using our data to showcase their abilities. For the full interactive treemap and an explanation of how the data are displayed, click here.

Previously: My First Impressions of Davos and Davos Moments 1-3.

My fourth Davos moment came when Magid and I participated in a three-hour exercise where we were essentially tasked with finding a formula for peace in the Middle East. Upon entering the meeting room, we were each assigned to random groups. Each group was given a set of facts about the fictional country, which loosely resembled Iran, Iraq, the UAE and “Dominania,” aka the United States. A fifth group consisted of private sector investors, presumably Sovereign Wealth Funds. The session was moderated by a well-known journalist from Al Jazeera. Most of the participants were high ranking officials from Middle Eastern countries. Interestingly, I believe that one U.S. government official and I were the only American-born team members.

As it happened, I was assigned to the “Dominania” group, and was selected by my team to be our ambassador to the other countries. We were given instructions to come up with a plan to achieve peace and stability in the region, while furthering the economic interests of our people. Our team had members from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt, and I have to say, they were all bright, articulate, and eager to devise a plan that achieved these objectives. We each embraced our roles.

Together, we managed to devise some very interesting proposals. And I suddenly developed a newfound appreciation for the difficulty of Condi Rice’s job.

One thing that was clear to me from the exercise is that if we’re ever going to make progress toward stability in the Middle East, all sides are going to have to learn how to communicate, negotiate and collaborate in ways they have not before.

So, there you have it: just a few of my many, many Davos Moments. Oh, and one other magical thing about Davos: it is the only place in the world where my husband will drag ME onto the dance floor at 2:00 am in the morning. Those of you who know us understand the significance of that. For those who don’t, you’ll have to trust me when I say that was also a Davos Moment – one of the best kind.

Previously: My Impressions of Davos

I thought I’d share my “Davos Moments” with you, when what I witnessed was so powerful I got chills. One session alone spawned three such moments.

The session was headed by Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of neuroprosthetics at Duke. Prior to this session, I didn’t know that neuroprosthetics was even a word. Essentially, it is the ability for your brain to move a prosthetic attached to your body just by thinking about it.

Professor Nicolelis gave us an amazing live demonstration of his work. Via satellite, he showed a monkey named Clementine walking on a treadmill at his lab in Durham. The brainwaves from the monkey were transmitted to a robot in Tokyo. Using mathematical models that replicated electric signals sent by the brain to cause muscles to move, the data were fed to the robot in real time, causing it to walk just like Clementine. In another variation of the experiment, they had the monkey think about walking, which caused the robot, in Tokyo, to walk just as the monkey would. But here’s the clincher—the amount of time it took all of this to occur was 118 milliseconds. That is faster than the time it takes Clementine to send signals from her own brain to her own leg.

Thinking about our soldiers coming home from Iraq who have lost limbs, as well as a 16 year old boy from our hometown who had an accident this summer and is now paralyzed from the neck down and the hope that this research represents for them, literally gave me chills and brought tears to my eyes. Meet Miguel and see a demo on YouTube.

That was my first Davos moment.

There were two other professors from MIT on that same panel who are also doing fascinating research in this area and each had equally gripping presentations. One, Hugh Herr, is a double amputee. While still in high school, he was mountain climbing one day, got caught in a storm and contracted frostbite, resulting in the loss of both his legs from the knee down. Since then, he has become a leading-edge researcher and has what he claims is the “benefit” of being able to test his work on himself. Seeing him walk, you would never guess anything out of the ordinary. But during his presentation, he lifted his pant leg and walked through the audience, inviting us all to closely observe how the prosthetic mirrored the complex movement of the foot and leg. It was amazing, eliciting images of “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “The Bionic Woman.”

Hugh’s future plans are to connect his brain to this amazing prosthetic device. This not only includes information flow from the brain to the limb, but also from the limb to the brain. So, when Clementine is thinking of walking, the robot will be walking, but with this new technology, Clementine will also feel like she’s walking. Hugh told us “This year, I’m happy to tell you I can walk – even run – on the beach. Next year, I hope to be able to tell you that I can also feel the sand on my feet.” He went on to joke that: “the last time my brain was connected to my legs, I was a D student in high school. Then, they became disconnected, and I became an MIT professor. Not sure what will happen when they’re connected again – hope I don’t revert to my high school days. Better get tenure first.” And, yes, he still mountain climbs!

That was another Davos moment.

But there’s more. As I was writing this piece, Miguel Nicolelis himself just happened to sit down next to me! He is as genuine and as down-to-earth a guy as you’ll ever meet. We got to talking, and for the next 45 minutes, he gave me a personalized lesson in neuroprosthetics, including a discussion of the mathematical models that explain the neural signals. (Surprisingly, they are actually linear.)

In addition, I learned of Miguel’s aggressive plans – already underway – to build a string of “science cities” all over his home country of Brazil, the center of which will be in Natal, a remote and impoverished area. The vision is that these will be high-quality schools that specialize in science-related subjects, but provide high quality education, often using scientific concepts for learning in all areas, such as the scientific method. The plan is that, over time, these hubs will attract both high-tech companies and research institutions, a concept that is taking hold in several developing countries, and especially across Asia.

You can read more about this in this month's Scientific American, but the idea is to create an environment in Brazil where accomplished students can work and succeed without emigrating to other countries, thereby slowing the brain drain and improving the socioeconomic conditions, and ultimately, improving the quality of life for the people of the students’ home country. Miguel believes strongly that “you don’t need a Ph.D. to make contributions to science, you just need the right environment.” In the last few years, he’s managed to secure initial funding for this project, and 400 students are currently enrolled. His plan calls for 1 million students to be enrolled in a series of schools all over Brazil two years from now. One million students. Talk about “Thinking Big.”

Next: Davos Moment #4

I’ve just returned from the World Economic Conference (“WEF”) in Davos, Switzerland, where the world’s leaders gather to discuss important issues, and to draw attention to, and devise solutions for, the world’s most pressing problems. For five days, from early morning to very late in the night, people gather in formal and informal sessions to address key questions or to share leading-edge developments in almost every conceivable area, ranging from economics to politics to technology to neuroscience to cancer research to education …just to name a few.

The invitations are quite exclusive, so for those of you who are wondering “so how did you get invited?” I’ll tell you: I wasn’t. My husband, Magid Abraham, CEO of comScore, was invited as a result of comScore being selected as a Technology Pioneer by the WEF in 2007. However, spouses were also invited, so I had the good fortune to attend with him. Because most sessions were open to spouses, we were able to divide and conquer (I am a member of the management team at comScore). Collectively, we came away with a wealth of new business contacts, knowledge and ideas.

This year, of course, the economy was front and center and sparked a lot of spirited debate. Global warming and world poverty were discussed in a session jointly led by Bono and Al Gore. Another major theme was social entrepreneurship – companies innovating ways to give back to the community as a basic part of their business model. Bill Gates delivered a keynote talk on that topic.

Because Davos represents such a unique opportunity to learn about so many things -- literally around the clock – extended sleep is simply not an option for most people. Two to four hours is the norm. At any given time, there are five to seven sessions running, and the biggest challenge is deciding which ones to attend.

The spirit of Davos is terrific: informal, friendly, and with the expectation that everyone there wants to meet everyone else.

Time after time, I met prominent people in everyday situations. At one point, the person next to me on a bus was the Prime Minister of a small Asian country. Another person I sat down next to, and ended up having coffee with, was the President of a developing country in Africa, and the person in front of me that handed me a plate in the buffet line was the CEO of a Fortune 100 company. One night, Magid and I were invited to a small, private dinner by Gloria Arroyo, President of the Philippines.

Basically, the norm is you introduce yourself and you chat. In a few cases, egos prevent the conversation from progressing much more. However, in most cases there is a genuine curiosity about the other party – giving birth to business relationships and friendships with very interesting individuals.

Next: My “Davos Moments”