Although transmission by large droplets when people cough or sneeze is considered the major route of influenza spread, transmission via contaminated hands may be a contributing factor.
The combination of the social dimension, the cool factor and self-expression made such widgets work and they spread quickly on blogs and social network profiles.
Reducing the shininess factor from 70 to 0 would not work the way you might expect, it would spread the white reflection across the whole object instead of it being concentrated in one spot.