Wibiya Toolbar Now Almost As Big As Twitter
Israel-based startup Wibiya has made waves with their social web toolbar, experiencing tremendous growth since their June 2009 launch and positioning themselves as the most popular web toolbar on the Internet. The Wibiya toolbar allows site owners to instantly integrate their entire web presence, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other outside functionality, into their website. A little over a year after the company’s launch, Wibiya is now being used on over 70,000 active websites and boasts 150 million unique monthly users – that’s almost as many as Twitter!
Today I had the opportunity to sit down with Wibiya’s CEO and co-founder, Dror Ceder, who demoed the toolbar for me and introduced me to its capabilities. By installing Wibiya on your website, you can bring all of your online activity to your site, where visitors can view it without leaving your homepage. Wibiya can bring Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google Buzz, and more directly to your site and your visitors can chat, share and engage with their social networks while checking out your content. Check out the screenshot below to see how users can engage with Facebook, directly from the Wibiya website using the company’s toolbar. Users can connect to “like” and share content, comment and even update their Facebook statuses, directly from the Wibiya toolbar.
Wibiya is a great way for publishers to add functionality and content to their websites without having to revamp or reprogram their entire website. Dror Ceder explains how it works:
“Our Company’s mission is to help Websites of all types easily integrate applications and features into their websites without writing any code. Websites can easily add features based on their benefits, from increasing page views and viewing analytics to integrating social networks. This allows each website to concentrate on their core business and use Wibiya for everything else.”
What makes the toolbar great is that it allows website visitors to engage with outside sources and social networks, without ever leaving the site, greatly decreasing the bounce rate for sites that have opted in to the service. Wibiya’s 150 million monthly users are engaged across the 70,000 plus websites that have the toolbar installed. They are using the toolbar to share content, chat with other website videos, watch YouTube clips, read Twitter content, and more.
Wibiya’s toolbar is already being used by a number of big brands and websites online, including TheOnion.com, Playboy.com, JellyBelly.com, Philly.com and more. The toolbar is allowing these brands to add functionality to their sites and give their visitors more opportunity to engage and share content. As word spreads about Wibiya, which is being marketed through word of mouth alone, it is likely to continue to grow at a rapid pace.
Have you interacted with Wibiya on any websites that you visit regularly? What do you think about the added functionality that this type of service offers?
