USAToday.com last month moved into the world of widgets when it introduced several offerings to allow users to incorporate the news site’s content on their personal and social networking Web sites.

Widgets, essentially shortcuts, give users immediate access to content generated from other sites (see sidebar, right).

The newspaper trotted out three travel-themed widgets with plans to offer several more this fall, according to Joel Sucherman, USAToday.com’s executive producer.

Among the widgets available on USA Today’s site are three that deal with travel-related news. The widgets are accessible at www.usatoday.com/community/widgets/index.htm
 

“We are planning a politics one for the 2008 elections, which should be the next widget to roll out,” he said.

USA Today also anticipates four other widgets, including most popular headlines, pop culture, its Snapshot information graphic and video celebrities.

“We find that USA Today’s core customers have a real strong identification with the brand and would be interested in identifying their own blogs and social networking pages with USA Today,” Sucherman said.

Widgets will also let the paper reach audiences that may not currently access its site, Sucherman said.

“You might have new customers stumble upon your content and serendipity plays the part of gaining new customers who may find something they are interested in,” he said.

Test the waters

“It’s also a way for us to test the waters and find out where people want to read USA Today content. Particularly when you get into these niche categories, maybe (a widget) helps people spruce up their pages and tell the story that they want to tell,” said Sucherman.

All widgets will have an advertising aspect and house standard ad units.

Sucherman said it’s too early to determine how popular the widgets are. But the newspaper, he said, doesn’t expect to judge success in weeks or months.

“We want to learn what our customers want, where they want to put these widgets,” he said. “We are trying to make them as available as possible, from Facebook and MySpace to Google, Blogger and Typepad.”

USAToday.com’s widgets are based on software from NewsGator Technology Inc., which also provides widgets to several other newspapers, including The Miami Herald and Denver Post (see box).

But the USAToday.com widgets are different, said Walker Fenton, NewsGator’s general manager of syndication services. USA Today’s widgets promote the newspaper’s own content and make that content easier to share among users’ sites.

“Other newspapers are using widgets to aggregate related third-party content within their sites, giving their audience greater breadth and depth around a particular subject or topic in a manner that is personalized and easy to use,” he said.