Here's my neck on a chopping board: I think that widgest are going to be for online marketing what SMS was for mobile - a distruptive technology that will change the way we do things, quite unexpectedly.
I believe that widgets will replace email as a marketing tool. In 5 years time.
The reason: widgets are about doing. Email is about telling. It's like in a good book, or a film, or a theatre piece: showing, not telling is a more powerful form of expression.
The smarter the widgets, the more things that we could do through them. If those things are done on a regular basis this may even reduce our visits to a brand's website. So, eventually, widgets could start cannibalising that channel as well. Put them on a mobile phone and the story widens. No wonder Japan is lagging behind many other countries when web is concerned: everybody over there does things through thousands applications available for their mobiles.
To win, widgets need to start becoming useful to broader audiences, not just kids and teenagers.
When that happens, email will start feeling the pressure.
Let me know what you think.
