Software developers say their impact is being underrepresented; comScore hopes a new measurement tool will paint a clearer pictureOnline social networks will continue to grab the attention of Web users and the advertisers who want to reach them in 2008, but some software developers who help make the networks popular say they're missing out on the spoils.
Social sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Google's (GOOG) Orkut could crack $1 billion in ad sales by year's end. Yet makers of the so-called "widget" software, whose programs have helped propel the networks' growth, have yet to see much of that revenue, in part because of a lack of reliable data about how many people use their products. "There are a huge amount of page views in social networking, but no one's figured out how to monetize them properly," says Duncan Davidson, a venture partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners, which invests in News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace and smaller social networks Multiply, FanIQ, and Bluepulse. "It's still an experiment."
Who's Using What Widgets?
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