An article in today's NY Times on Google's Gadgets program:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/technology/19google.html

Got me thinking...if we made a gadget (or general-purpose widget):

a) who would we make it for?

b) what would it do?

c) how would it be compelling?

...and at the same time tie-back in some nice way to the BSG Alliance brand?  What's a great NGE datapoint that our audience would want?  (kind of like a stock ticker or a weather bug, but NGE?)  Any brilliant ideas?

Excerpting some of the text:

"One big advantage of the technology is that the consumer does not have to click through to a Web site. A weather widget, for example, would constantly update the weather report in a particular area. Similarly, marketers could feature content to attract consumers while constantly updating their own messages.

More than 48 percent of Internet users in the United States — over 87 million people — now use widgets, according to comScore, the online measurement company. Some of the most popular widgets on Facebook, for example, are the “Top Friends” tool, which allows people to go to their best friends’ profiles with a single click, and iLike, which lets users add music to their profiles.

“Consumers are pulling in content from multiple sources” said Christian Oestlien, a business product manager at Google who is overseeing the new ad program. “It is what we are calling the componentization of the Web. The Web is sort of breaking apart into smaller pieces.”

Many widgets have been built by media outlets, like Lucky Magazine’s shopping widget, which features hot fashion and beauty products. And some companies like Slide are developing networks of widgets made by individuals that advertisers can place ads within.

But consumer brands like Sierra Mist and Honda Civic have also been creating their own widgets as a way of providing content or tools to potential customers. Google is hoping marketers will pay to place these widgets throughout its AdSense network."

Advertisers bid for keywords to place their widget ads in Google’s network in the same way they do other Google ads. Since many users will interact with the ads within the ad units and not click through, Google has developed a new interaction measure to document the interest in the ads.

Google tested its Gadget Ads program this summer with a group of 50 marketers. To encourage more advertisers to make such ads, Google is offering to be host of videos for the ads in YouTube’s servers — a cost-saving for advertising agencies. And Google provides tools for updating the ads, even if marketers do not bid for ads in Google’s network. Marketers pay Google only for the ads that run in its networks and not for any downloading or saving of those ads that consumers may choose to do.