Powers Widget Distribution for Publishers and Advertisers, Enabling Web Users to Consume Content Wherever They Choose
PALO ALTO, CA – May 19, 2008 - Gigya, the leading provider of tools for tracking and boosting widget distribution, today announced that, according to comScore, Gigya reached over 120 million unique widget users worldwide and over 44 million unique widget users in the United States in March 2008. This data was released earlier this month as part of comScore’s Widget Metrix Report.
Global Shifts in the Consumption of ContentToday’s Internet users want to consume content in the places they spend their time, and increasingly those places are social network pages, start pages, blogs and other user-controlled pages. As a result, an enormous amount of content is now being used and enjoyed away from its original source. According to a February 2008 Trend Market report published by Universal McCann, “Social networks, personalized homepages and search engines are becoming platforms for external content. Essentially they [are] becoming the way that consumers organize their Internet experience. All sites are making their content available for publishing elsewhere and widgets are a great way to package and keep control of the content published elsewhere.”
Gigya’s distribution technology is providing the infrastructure for this new phenomenon. Gigya helps publishers by giving them the tools they need to get their content – in the form of widgets – distributed widely through social networks and other platforms, and tracks associated activity. The auto-posting tool also empowers consumers by making it easy for them to grab and share content to their choice of more than 50 social networks, blogs, start pages, bookmarking sites and desktop platforms.
“We are delighted with the findings in the most recent comScore report because they highlight the scale Gigya has so quickly achieved,” said Rooly Eliezerov, Co-founder and President of Gigya, Inc. “We made our widget distribution technology available just one year ago, and we are now the technology of choice for more than a thousand publishers and advertisers. The comScore numbers provide further confirmation that we are an important part of this emerging trend of data and content portability.”
A Widget Advertising and Distribution Solution for Brand AdvertiserscomScore also reports that a total of 604 million people, representing 65 percent of the worldwide Internet users, viewed or engaged with a widget in March 2008. According to the IAB’s April 2008 report “User Generated Content, Social Media and Advertising,” UGC sites are projected to attract 101 million users in the U.S. and earn $4.3 billion in ad revenue by 2011. With such enormous reach, widgets are now a major focus for marketers looking to reach an audience of social media users in a contextually appropriate way.
Gigya’s advertising model gives brand advertisers a scalable and measurable way to reach that audience, a model where the ad unit is a dedicated brand widget installed across multiple social platforms. The company’s unique widget distribution network delivers up to hundreds of thousands of brand advertiser widget installs over the initial days or weeks of a client campaign, providing it maximum exposure and runway for growth. Gigya charges exclusively on a pay per install basis so that advertisers can work within a specific budget and timeframe. All viral installs – those that come from sharing and grabbing – along with widget impressions and interactions, are included at no additional charge. Gigya's advertiser roster includes clients like Sprint, Wal-Mart, Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, Disney, VH1 and Levis.
About GigyaGigya’s content sharing and advertising technologies connect brand advertisers, content publishers and an enormous audience of active social media users. Gigya serves the world's largest brands with a full-service widget advertising model covering design, development, hosting, distribution, viral promotion, tracking and optimization. Gigya's Wildfire technology installs hundreds of thousands of widgets per day and tracks over four billion impressions per month. Gigya’s partners include EyeWonder, Doubleclick, Eyeblaster, Electronic Arts, RockYou, Webshots, Snapvine and many others. To learn more or to get started, go to: www.gigya.com.