Widget spend to grow

March 19, 2008

Widgets are gaining some serious traction! U.S. companies have spent approx $15m on widget based campaigns in 2007 and that is projected to grow to $40m in 2008.

That spend reflects only 2.5% of the total amount that is projected to be spent on social network advertising in the next year. Now that’s quite low, I believe this is because so many widget campaigns have been so poorly executed in the past year and corporates are having difficulty seeing the potential ROI in comparison to traditional banner advertising and more brand led efforts (such as sponsored pages and profiles).

I stick by my earlier prediction that 2008 will be the year of the widget; if portability, engagement and usefulness are all kept in mind then a widget campaign can serve both branding and conversion. For more on my thoughts on widgets see this post.

For more on widget spend visit eMarketer.

Posted by Steve E
Filed in advertising, banner, social network, widget
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A widgets masterclass

March 3, 2008

Here’s an interesting series of articles and audio/video from Business Week on the subject of widgets. The series is designed to help influence CEO’s as to whether it’s worth dipping your toes in the waters of widgets (I’m a believer so I’d say yes, go for it).

Building a brand with widgets gives a good overview as to why it may be important to your brand to embrace new technologies and distribution channels such as widgets in order to promote your brand and discusses the viral aspects that can make brands fly online.

Widgets: The future of online ads is a piece singing the praises of widgets and all they stand for. On the flip side Why widgets don’t work is a counterpoint playing devils advocate.

A widget mogul in between classes is about the up and coming Facebook app developer Ankur Nagpal who’s made six figures at the age of 19 creating apps for Facebook.

When Facebook ads flop introduces us to some of the many unused Facebook applications and gives reasons for their failure. What’s good about this piece is the fact that most of the apps are from large companies with mature marketing strategies and yet they’ve still got it wrong, should be a warning to us all.

The CEO guide to widgets is a podcast talking about the use of widgets for advertising on social networks.

Finally, Making money from widgets is a video interview with VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez discussing how to go about monetising the widget world.

Great series of articles, definitely recommend sending this to your CEO (or manager…) if they really don’t seem to get it yet!

Posted by Steve E
Filed in advertising, application, brand, facebook, marketing, widget
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BBC widgetizes its homepage

December 14, 2007

The BBC have released a beta of their homepage featuring Netvibe/Google’esque personal homepage features and loads of AJAX.

I like it. Very clean, well laid out, intuitive to navigate, the AJAX drag and drop is really easy to use. It’s very web 2.0 in looks though and they may have taken that style a little too far but it is a vast improvement and looks extremely usable. Good job BBC!

Posted by Steve E
Filed in ajax, design, web 2.0, widget
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Widget advert networks coming of age; good or bad?

December 10, 2007

So, after attending a widgets conference I’m now gripped by all things widgety and waiting to see the latest developments in this area of the web marketplace. I didn’t have long to wait…

Clearspring have just announced the launch of a widget ad network called (wait for it) WidgetAd Network. They’ve been serving adverts as widgets for a while but are now offering a network to widen the distribution possibilities.

It’s the next in a line of widget ad announcements. Advertising.com launched WIDGNET as a network to serve widget ads last week.

My concern would be if widgets end up being seen as the new MPU. They have so much more potential than that, I’ve got a list of applications I want to embed in a widget for my employers benefit, and all will show a decent ROI. Brands need to think differently.

A widget is not just a display point (like a traditional banner)! It is an interaction point, an engagement point, an application container and a way to automagically seed your websites functionality onto other websites quickly and easily. And all this is down to the user to say, yes please I’d like to grab your widget and embed it in my page/site. It’s direct response with user permissions thrown in for good measure, you can’t get much better than that.

So please, don’t just embed a flash banner in a widget and think that you can get away with it. You could seriously damage the potential of widgets and give users the wrong impression.

Keep them smart, keep them engaging, keep them useful and you’ll see real ROI and drive the kind of brand loyalty and qualified visitors that we are all looking for from these networks.

Posted by Steve E
Filed in advertising, banner, marketing, wguk07, widget
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Widgety Goodness

December 6, 2007

Here at Widgety Goodness today, in case you don’t know what that is it’s a conference in Brighton UK all about (you guessed it) widgets.

For me it’s a chance to understand more about a technology I’ve been familiar with for a year or so now and to try to get my head round the benefits to our brand and return good ROI with them.

Anyway, highlights so far:

The first speaker couldn’t make it, bad news sometimes but luckily Susan Mernit (Yahoo) left a video message. Take out from her talk was that widgets are all about the user and there was a great quote that ‘we are the operating system’, something that is becoming increasingly evident.

Up next was Chris Cunningham of Freewebs. These guys interest me a lot as they specialise in custom, branded widgets which is just what I’m after. He said that success in widgets is much more elusive, less formulaic and algorithmic in nature. Tell me about it, we’ve been battling with finding the right reason to jump on board, another reason for coming today. He says that custom widgets have the most brand advocacy of any online ad format and offered three rules: add value/utility; be contagious and make it a personal experience. All key points for us as we have a brand to protect and only want to enter this space of we can engage our customers (and potential customers).

Next up was Russell Davies. A hugely interesting guy and highly knowledgeable in his space. Interesting to hear someone from a more traditional marketing background discuss widgets. Main take out from him was that marketing is changing, mainly brought about by the move to digital platforms. He says ‘awareness’ is old school; what’s new school, well it’s all about attention, engagement, permission and response.

Great conference so far. Looking forward to some of the later speakers very much. More later.

Posted by Steve E
Filed in online, wguk07, widget
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Widgety Goodness!

October 24, 2007

What a great name for a conference! I’ve just registered for this upcoming conference on all things widgety in Brighton, Sussex. Luckily for me, that’s my hometown so it’s going to be great to meet some likeminded geeks, old friends and hear about the col things that are happening with widgets.

Widgets are something close to my heart as we used to develop what could be considered widgets about 9 years ago for a portal I used to run. Of course, things have come a long way since then and things are far, far more sophisticated now.

Anyway, should be a great event, and I love the logo!!

Posted by Steve E
Filed in brighton, conference, widget
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