Hi,
yesterday I started a discussion on the possible revenues for netvibes coming from Widgets Monetization.
Let's first explain what are Widgets and why they interest the Marketing community:
Basically, Widgets are portable applications (programs) that provide functionality and content online. Widgets can either sit on a user’s desktop or a web page and perform a function. There are desktop (Yahoo and Vista) and webtop widgets (webblog, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Myspace, iGoogle, etc.) made available via Springwidgets.com, Clearspring.com , Netvibes, Widgetbox.com, or other platforms, with many different functions that they can perform.
If you use Netvibes, by clicking on the upper left side of your page on the "ADD CONTENT" you will have a choice between Widgets and Universes.
Netvibes' Widgets are devided in Feeds (RSS) ; Basic Widgets (Weather, WebNote,...); Communication (Gmail, Yahoomail, Popmail...) ; Search (Web, Blog, Images, ...); Applications (digg, ebay, twitter,...); External widgets (UWA modules, Web page by url...) .
The interesting thing about Widgets is that you can add them where you want (if they are correctly written) and you become independent from the Original Web page. In Netvibes (or any other independent personalized homepage) you can have your Gmail next to your YahooMail and your Msn Hotmail. You can read the feeds from the BBC next to the CNN and the REUTERS (but all of you know that already).
The difficulty for the Content Providers and the Advertising industry is that the Widgets use programming languages that create problems in measuring the audience of the "Original Content Provider" as the final user (Me) is not always directly connected to the Content Provider (ex: CNN).
On the other way, the Widget builders will want to:
1) Drive Traffic to their own site (ex: Tip of the Day, Photo of the Day, latest Blog post, or a Sale of the Day )
2) Allow for a deeper connection with their consumers (ex: a nationally known pet products brand offered a desktop widget that allows users to get updated local weather and have a photo of their pet as a background)
3) Push the Brand
4) Build links (from every site that embeds the widget)
Widgets represent an entirely new way of looking at advertising.
Unlike almost all other online ads, widgets are uploaded onto sites (personal sites, profile pages, blogs) by consumers themselves. They are pulled by their audience, instead of pushed by marketers. And the publishers (largely personal publishers) who upload them are far more than affiliates: owing to these publishers’ personal dynamic and voice, they become advocates for the marketers whose widgets they help distribute.
About Widgets viewership:
In the Wall Street Journal, Comscore reports on viewership of widgets: 177.8 million in April:
Slide is leading the widget economy with 117.1 mln widget-views in April 2007, followed by RockYou with 82 mln., followed by PictureTrail, PhotoBucket, Bunnyhero Labs, BlingyBob, POQbum, Brightcove, Layoutstar and MusicPlaylist.us. 105 mln people visited MySpace in April 2007 and 38.8 mln visited Facebook.
Many readers have noted that YouTube.com is not included...(sources:
)
No comments:
Post a Comment