I have a lot of experience with widgets/gaining links on other sites. From back in 2000 when I first started to hammer away at top sites, to Blog Flux, widgets are something that I am intimately acquainted with.

Nevertheless, I still follow widgets like a hawk. If there is anything that Digg did well, it was creating an easy ‘Digg This’ javascript system. Basically a widget, it got Digg’s brand everywhere.

In local, widgets are especially fantastic. Yelp has one, but I’m not impressed – the map system means heavy load, which … well – sucks. I find it surprising that neither Judy’s Book nor IP ever released such a widget – or if they did, their promotion efforts for it were horrible.

So I was actually glad Judy’s Book this time actually had a widget for their Coupon Looker, but also confused. It was brand heavy (link on top, and more on the bottom). It didn’t pay anything. The actual results were a bit retarded – instead of sending them to the actual coupon, it just sent them to the search results on Coupon Looker (which you were getting already through the widget).

So I did what anybody curious would do – I emailed everyone on their ‘Who’s using the couponlooker widget?’ list. Or at least, I emailed everyone that didn’t work for JB.

Key observations:

• A few of them had used JB previously. They had stopped using it for this or that reason.
• Quite a few of them have their readers ask about coupons. This was a good solution for them to offer to their readers.
• Most haven’t looked at it in depth, but will review it in time (did JB say it was in progress?)
• None of them were paid. BUT – quite a few said that if there was a commission (perfectly acceptable imo) they would much prefer that.
• Most of them found it ‘acceptable’. Most had a shortlist of features that could improve it. Most of these features involved flexibility (design, categories). The most interesting one was recommending contextually. I can see a contextual + affiliate system could be a sustainable ad system.
• Link back. For most, who were teetering on the cliff, the link back pushed them over.

Almost all promised to monitor how the system works over the coming week before coming to a decision to ‘stick’ with it or not. And while the link back closed the deal, all the bloggers did do it for their readers (a few mentioned that the traffic they did receive from that link has been minimal). Not a single person mentioned SEO.

UPDATE: It also seems like that CL is a team play.