> > > Also don't overlook the possibility of creating an open social gadget, > there is a potential audience of aprox 300 mil (i don't know what the exact > number is today, it was 280 before and it's growing rapidly), so quite often > when you have a great idea, making a gadget and posting it on those social > network sites (myspace, orkut, hi5, imeem, idtail, netlog, etc etc etc) is a > great way to reach a large audience and can save a lot of work of having to > attract people to go visit your own site. It's not always the best option, > but depending on your concept, sometimes it is :)
Sorry to digress, but you've actually bought up a really interesting point there. I used to work on the Adwords Customer support team over at Google, which meant assisting big customers with technical (non-ads) issues, like using the Google Maps API, or deploying gadgets for iGoogle (which are basically non-social apps, or min-webpages, as I'm sure you all know). I spent a lot of time talking to them about gadgets, and deploying content. For most of 2007, there was general fear and discomfort over gadgets, because a lot of large companies thought they were losing control of their content. Just before I left that team, in march 2008, I was starting to see a real shift in perception. More and more, these same companies were starting to measure traffic on gadgets just like a regular web page, using javascript to see how people interacted, and driving people back to their sites. I obviously still speak to that team, and I'm told it's only got 'worse'. More and more of these companies are entirely comfortable deploying really quite advanced technology offsite, as long as they get something in return. So, Václav, although what we think you're asking isn't possible, I think you might be surprised how much usage a well-thought-out app can generate.
