Socializing the Web.

Online social networking has moved beyond phenomenon and into the mainstream, changing forever the way people consume content online.

For publishers, the rapid growth of social networks, blogs and other user-created or controlled spaces offers enormous potential for developing larger audiences – and value – for their content.  One such opportunity is to atomize their content by creating widgets, so that it can be freely distributed across the Web. Widgets have become the primary way of syndicating content outside the context of a web site. However until recently there has been no technology that could route them to all the corners of the Web where users now spend much of their time – social network pages, start pages, blogs and other user-controlled pages.

Enter Gigya, a two-year-old Palo Alto, California startup. 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.

With Gigya’s auto-posting tool, users can also pass along a widget to their friends. As a result content spreads virally as recipients, in turn, pass it along to others. In addition, Gigya’s technology includes a free analytics toolkit enabling content developers to track how and where their content is being consumed and shared.

According to comScore 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, Coca-Cola, SonyBMG, Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, Disney, VH1 and Levis.

Publishers in the network share a percentage of Gigya’s advertising revenue, earning a higher amount per visitor than they can through more established advertising revenue sources like AdSense or banner ad networks.

Recently, the company added a new service for publishers called Gigya Socialize that allows any website to add social features. For web publishers, Gigya Socialize is a powerful mechanism for enhancing a website’s relevance and boosting its audience.

Electronic Arts is implementing Gigya Socialize to enhance the online experience of its wildly popular Sims franchise.  Members of The Sims communities will be able to easily connect with people inside the community and also invite friends from other social networks. The technology also gives users the power to more easily discover new content like movies, games and performances created by people within The Sims communities, and then share it with their broader social networks.

Gigya’s Wildfire technology installs hundreds of thousands of widgets per day and tracks over four billion impressions per month and is used by over 1000 publishers. Gigya’s partners include EyeWonder, Doubleclick, Eyeblaster, Electronic Arts, RockYou, Webshots, Snapvine, CNET and many others.

Mayfield Fund led a $9.5 million Series B round of financing along with Benchmark Capital and First Round Capital. Mayfield Managing Director Navin Chaddha sits on Gigya’s board of directors.

“Gigya’s content sharing and advertising technologies connect brand advertisers, content publishers and an enormous audience of active social media users,” Chaddha says. “According to comScore, Gigya reached over 120 million unique widget users worldwide in March 2008 confirming Gigya is an important part of this emerging trend of data and content portability.”