From Web Widgets and Web Toolbars to Browser-Extensions! Giving More Control to End Users

We have witnessed the rapid shift from “Web and Mobile Web Widgets” to “Website Toolbars” then to “Browser Extensions”. But what’s next? Well, it seems that we’re going directly whatever gives more control of web functions and features to End Users as opposed to Publishers or websites’ owners!

For several years, we have seen and used many web and mobile web widgets in almost all websites. First, publishers or websites’ owners have been using those widgets to provide more content on their websites for their users, such as a weather or a news widget.

Then publishers wanted to create more interactive environment for their users and allow them to easily share content of their websites on all social media networks, the most famous example of this could be Meebo widget (a Sequoia-backed company with $70M of total funding over 5 years).

Next, we have seen widget-networks or what can be called widget-stores, where you as a publisher can select among hundreds of available widgets to post on your website and enrich your website’s user experience. Not only this, but they also enable you to create your own widget via their amazing platforms and then offer it in their markets. The best example for this could be WidgetBox, (Another Sequoia-backed company with more than $14M of total funding over 3 years).

This trend has been developed into a new stage, where publishers are offered more freedom in customizing their widget-like functions, and in offering more and more widgets to their users without affecting their websites’ structures and missing them up by having tens of widgets here and there. This has been implemented through the website toolbars concept without even affecting the websites’ designs!

Using those nice-looking toolbars, publishers can offer end users more social interactivity, direct access to their social media accounts to easily like, tweet, or share etc… more over, it allows publishers to offer their users live chat with like minded people who happen to be browsing the same website at the same time.

The best example of such toolbars is Wibiya (A less than 10 months old company with $2M in early stage funding). Wibiya not only did this, but also it opened up its platform for all developers to innovate in creating more apps to be sold to publishers and placed on their toolbars.

But what about end users?! All the previous efforts were focusing on publishers! Well, here comes the beauty of browser extensions or plug-ins. With those extensions, users can have their own “widgets” (if we may still use this word) with them wherever they go. As an end user, I can now have whatever functions I want on any website I visit! So I don’t need to use publishers’ widgets or toolbars any more! I am not controlled by the publisher any more!

Few excellent examples for this can be found on Google Chrome Extensions such as Glue (a Union-Square backed company with $12M total funding over 4 years), Yoono (An IDinvest backed company with more than $5M in total funding over the last 4 years), Marginize (A TechStars company with over $650K of Angel investments raised in last Aug.), OneTrueFan (A First Round Capital backed company with $1.2M total funding raised in last Sep.), etc….

Almost all of them offer their services for both publishers (as a widget) and for end users (as a browser extension). They also offer their services in one of two main forms: a Bottom Toolbar or a Sidebar.

The best of all examples is a beta version developed by a Lebanese kid just graduated high school called: Rifflex. Rifflex is a sidebar-extension for Google Chrome that allows me as an end user to have several widgets in one sidebar. The kid has understood the need to have a one-stop-shop sidebar!

Now imagine if there is a browser-based sidebar-extension across all browsers with an open API and an App-store for “widgets” or now “Apps.” that are chosen and totally controlled by end users, and developed by developers from around the world who can upload their Apps to this platform. This could be the next “user-friendly” version of WidgetBox as opposed to the current $14M funded “publisher-friendly” version of it (mentioned above).

This might be the next big thing!