NewsGator / Gigya partnership

As you may have read, NewsGator is partnering with Gigya to use the Wildfire sharing components on the back of our widgets. This is a big move for us, to date we've written and maintained our own sharing code, so to rely on a third party service for this critical technology was a significant decision. But as we quickly found out, the benefits easily outweighed the costs with respect to technology and the monetization options they bring to the table.

Without getting into too much detail on the technology, Gigya has put together a very efficient interaction model whereby their systems are not called until requested (by clicking on the 'get this' button on the widgets). What this means is that we are not dependent on their systems when the widget loads, which does not introduce another point of failure into the mix. I should also mention they've integrated into a few more destinations than we have :)

With regards to the monetization options, Gigya has a unique way of inviting people to install additional widgets during the sharing process. It feels like a welcomed add-on, "Since you're already installing a widget on iGoogle, would you like to install this one as well?" type experience. Its not intrusive, and advertisers and other widget makers will pay for the opportunity to be presented in that spot, and Gigya shares the proceeds.

So we're excited to be working with Gigya, we will both benefit from the shared experience.