New Widget Syndication Service
Musestorm just launched.
Their service can now distribute feeds via customizable web widgets, create Yahoo Desktop Widgets for Windows and Mac, create Google Desktop Gadgets and (most importantly) track the number of impressions across the web and desktops, view data about the domains hosting your widgets and receive data about every clickthrough from web and desktop widgets. The tracking service is free for 2 months, after which you pay $4/month per feed for tracking web and desktop widgets.
This service is geared towards RSS feed syndication by bloggers. They provide some simple analytics. Not as robust as Widgetbox Widget Syndication Metrics, but probably good enough for most users.
Are we worried? Not at all… I think this is a great sign that Widgets are now starting to hit their stride and companies are working on ways to give content creators more control. We are taking a slightly different approach as we will soon announce.
Sample Musestorm widget: