I signed up for Zembly's public beta, and built this widget (with appropriate permission). (Renders best in Firefox -- no scrolling):
Postscript June 2009: With the acquisition of FAO Schwarz by Toys R Us, the "gift finder" application on fao.com, off which my widget is based, has been retired. I'll look for a suitable app on another site and reimplement a widget as and when time permits.
Here's the embed code:
<iframe
src="http://78cb960a3fad4111ab601e6daa1f615c.c24eff9
67d6b41828058657c028c9946.zembly.com/things/78cb960a3
fad4111ab601e6daa1f615c;iframe"></iframe>
Cool service; easy to use, you can build versions of this to run on FB and other social networks. Took me less than an hour, most of that time spent getting the widget reduced to its essential elements. Figuring out how to use Zembly took 5 minutes, and I didn't even need to RTFM.
(Sadly, I haven't yet been able to figure out how to track traffic to and from the widget with my Google Analytics account (since it's not accepting the Zembly url for the widget I'm offering), advice appreciated; I might try this.)
Broader point: application widgets like this one (along with mini-games) are the future of the display ad business (in particular a good chunk of the rich media unit segment of that business), which has been criticized for skewed CTRs ("Natural-Born Clickers"), and which is trying to work out appropriate engagement metrics with the advertisers and media companies on either side of it. Services like Zembly that make it easy to author such units will become this generation's Frontpage.
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