Widgets have provided one of the more effective yet indirect ways of increasing your reach on the web. Now, Widgetbox, one of the more prominent and well-funded widget platforms, is taking another step to differentiate itself in commoditized market. It is starting to use its own network to drive traffic to blogs and other online sites. Widgetbox's new Blog Network, to be announced at the BlogWorld Expo this week, automates a portion of the content widgetizing process on behalf of publishers, and encourages a more methodical spreading of widgets.
Here's how it works. To join the Widgetbox Blog Network, a publisher must use one of Widgetbox's 29 new Network Channels. These channels push relevant content out across the web. The corresponding widgets for each Network Channel are compiled of the content from participating publisher. Widgetbox then tries to determine more popular content, and displays this in each of the Network widgets as well. Behavioral data from these widgets and other factors determine the content that gets pushed up the leaderboards used to determine top content the Widgetbox Blog Network.
The Network appears to follow some familiar formats for other blog directories like BlogCatalog and specialized memes or search engines, such as Technorati. It competes to some extent with other cooperation-based distribution networks, such as Mochila, that rely on a similar structure for both content aggregation and distribution.
This latest move adds to Widgetbox's claim that is is one of the most comprehensive widget platforms available to publishers. Its existing platform for content distribution has grown in the past year to include an ad network, enterprise solutions for integrated galleries to be used by stand-alone networks looking to provide internal widgets, and specialized tools for creating applications for other platforms such as those launched by Facebook and Bebo.