Tariq Krim, Netvibes'CEO, launches his new blog giving clues on Widgets' monetization

Tariq Krim, Netvibes' CEO and founder, has just launched his own blog: http://www.tariqkrim.com.

His second post is about the Monetization of the Widget economy:

Tariq expects the market to develop from the estimated 40 mln US$ for 2008 to a much bigger figure for 2009. Tariq seems also to consider an European way to Widgets, where Netvibes could take the lead.

Let's wait for a few days before commenting all this...

If you are interested here is a Business presentation in PDF make by Netvibes beginning of April 2008.


As you can see, one of the options is to bring brands and advertising inside every possible widget while the overall homepage will be not be sponsored.

iGoogle the home page from Google and Netvibes' biggest competitor announcing big changes

iGoogle, the personalized home page from Google and the biggest competitor for Netvibes is announcing some changes to come:

1) Google will allow Widget (gadgets) Developers to insert Ads in their Widgets:
"... but there will be some restrictions. Ads will be limited to the canvas view only and certain types of ads will not be allowed. Developers are free to use any ad provider to place ads in their gadget. However, we strive to maintain the best user experience, and as such, we plan on surveying users to determine how ads impact user satisfaction. Poor user ratings and reviews may impact a gadget's viral features, ranking, and directory listing.

Ads cannot move across the page or expand beyond their initial bounds - they must hold a persistent location. No pop-up windows are allowed. Audio ads cannot be initiated without user action."

2) IGoogle will become social and create Friends
Users will have full control over who their friends are and will be able to easily modify their list of friends. Expected to roll out this summer.

3) other improvements include: Notifiactions/Messages, Widget invitations and permissions...

Strangely enough, iGoogle has not its own url meaning by that that it is just a part of the Google main Search web site ?

Some "fresh" data from iGoogle:

iGoogle Users:

• Tens of millions (??!!) worldwide, 50% US and 50% outside
• One of Google's fastest growing products the past two years
• 42 languages, 73 domains

Top Gadgets:

• Weather
• Date & Time
• CNN.com
• Movies

Interesting comment by Steve Rubel, here.

.

Netvibes presents first Sponsored Widgets Search Results

The First Sponsored Widgets are now on display in the ADD CONTENT (Updated) and the Ecosystem of Netvibes.

As I was posting yesterday, Netvibes' CEO, Tariq Krim, has decided to reserve the first 3 Widgets search results or Widgets category results to Sponsored Widgets.

The sponsoring starts already in the Netvibes' Ecosystem Homepage with 2 Widgtets highlighted.


What is strange is to see the Slide Slideshow sponsored and also 3rd in the results ;)

But it is inside of the ecosystem, that the sponsored widgets appear: 3 in the first row.
Check here the Business category:



Here also, the sposored widgets are highlighed and market Sponsored as I was asking yesterday. That way it will be easy to jump to the real results ;).

I still think that an "open and ethical service" as Netvibes will have much better revenues sources than "Sponsored Search results".

And I agree with what another user, Chris, commented on my yesterday' post:
"Sponsored search results...sounds like the web circa 1997" ...

To conclude, I would still recommend Netvibes to improve their Search results.

If you are looking for the Widget Sport Category you will see this:
2 Sponsored Widgets: one for the News of the World Newspaper with just 1 over 4 tabs on Sport and the Kentuky Derby horseracing widget. As they are sponsored I will not discuss their interest.
But look at the first "real result": the VELIB Widgtet !!! Well, if you are not from Paris, France you will probably not know that is not a Widget on Cycling as a Sport but a Where to find widget for the a public bicycle rental programme in Paris, France ??!!

Incidently, is a very good widget if you are in Paris and it was done by Philippe one of my favorite widget designers ;)

Netvibes to sell search widgets results

In a new Video (in French for the Figaro News Blog), Tariq Krim, Founder and Ceo of Netvibes gives more details about the future sources of revenues for his company.

As I have reported in a previuos post about the 3 main sources of Revenues, Tariq Krim was pointing:

"3. Netvibes is going to be a "Widget Market Place" and will offer better positioning in their search to "Sponsored Widgets."

The news is that the "Search for Widgets" offered by the new Ginger update in the Add Content menu will present in the First 3 positions the Paying Widgets.
That implies also the end of the Ecosystem as we know it now.

I am not opposed at sponsored search results, in principle, but from an "ethical company like Netvibes" I would like to be sure that:

1. the Sponsored results should be clearly identify as such
2. that they will be limited to the first 3.

That way, I could always jump at the 4th as I always done untill now ;)

For a more severe comment on the problem of sponsored result searches (à la Yahoo) and on the Search from Netvibes at the moment, read my other post.

Netvibes Ginger will bring a new battle for "domain" names ?

Hi,

With the Ginger release coming for everyone and the possibility for anyone to choose his preferred Universe Name, there is a high risk of finding a lot of Coca-cola, Nike, Prada Universes... like what happened during the Internet Domain names war.

Of course Brand Names are subject to the Netvibes -Terms of Service (ToS) stating:

Conduct of Users:...
"...not to make available any content that you do not have the lawful right to transmit (including any content that would violate any confidentiality or fiduciary obligations you might have), that would infringe the intellectual or proprietary rights of any third party (including, but not limited to, copyright, trademark, service mark or patent rights), or that would violate the right of privacy or publicity of any public or non-public persons;"

But what about Institutions like: Onu, Unicef, European Parliament or Public Names like: Carla Bruni, George Clooney, Barack Obama, ... ? Are they going to be available for an Universe name ?

Of course, Netvibes ToS has a prevision by which:

"In case of any violation of the above, Netvibes reserves the right to cancel or rename your account and/or to block you from accessing the Site as well as to disclose any information as necessary to satisfy any law, regulation, governmental request or partner request, at its sole discretion. Netvibes also reserves the right to block the distribution of Your Content or any Third-Party Content through the Service."

and also:

"Netvibes provides its users (“You”), for a non-commercial personal use, with a fully-customizable Site" but it will be difficult to check every Universe...

But it will be interesting to see what names will flourish... and if that could also be a source of revenues for Netibes.

Netvibes' 3 sources of Revenues by Tariq Krim (CEO)

Hi,

I was looking and a fresh video intereview of Tariq Krim, CEO of Netvibesfrom Davos (Switzerland) made by Robert SCOBLE for his blog.

The main information is the statement by Tarqi himself of the 3 sources of Revenues for Netvibes after the Ginger update that will be available for all in mid-February:

1. Branded Pages : Netvibes builds Private pages for other companies.
2. Advertising Widgets: Netvibes is studying ways to insert micro-advertising in to the widgets.
3. Netvibes is going to be a "Widget Market Place" and will offer better positioning in their search to "Sponsored Widgets.

Look yourself at the video:


And here a link to GigaOm on the same subject.

Netvibes to introduce micro-banners widgets ads and text ads.

Hi,



While everybody is testing the new Ginger release (5.000 invitations in a few hours) and giving definitive opinions in a few minutes;) I was looking at a post from Erick Schonfeld on Techcrunch in which Tariq Krim, CEO and founder of Netvibes, would have express himself over the future of Widgets Monetization, and by that on the future of Netvibes revenues :



"Netvibes is part of OpenSocial and T. Krim’s had Bebo-like discussions with Facebook. “Both consortia would like us to be exclusive on their technology,” he sighs. (Sounds like the platform war is in full swing). Krim says he wants to work with both OpenSocial and Facebook.

Ultimately, T. Krim doesn’t care where you consume his widgets. By the end of the first quarter, he plans on introducing widget ads in the form of micro-banners and text ads.

The problem with widget ads, though, is that there are no standards.
“We need the equivalent of OpenSocial for advertising,” he laments.

If only everyone could agree on how to make money, the widget economy might actually come into existence."



That is interesting and must be confirmed.

Netvibes has Premium Widgets category

Hi,

browsing the Netvibes Ecosystem I stumbled on some Widgets that were stamped premium Widgets. With a little search here is the explanation:


"With Premium Widgets, save additional space for your screen by merging feeds from one website in one handy widget. Forget about RSS, every time a new RSS feed is available, it will automatically appear on the widget."




At first it looks interesting if you are interested in all the tabs that the widget is offering you.

But,

• if you want to reed fast the What's News AND the Business tabs of the WSJ, then 2 separates feeds will work faster.
• the LOGO : you can not modify, reduce or delete... and it takes a few pixel .
• the Widget Title: you can not modify, reduce or delete.

In fact those PREMIUM WIDGETS are "produced and mantained" by Netvibes with the aim to get a revenues from this. If the program works, it should bring in the future that no WSJ feeds could be available on Netvibes except for the branded one ...

If I wanted to earn revenues with Netvibes...

Hi,

I was thinking about which ways I could use if I wanted to get revenues with Netvibes.

Here is a first list:

1. creating an "exclusive content Univers" using Netvibes as a "media platform" to aggregate content with several different widgets and selling the audience to Advertisers. These Content Universes (say the "New York Restaurants Univers by Peter: lists, reviews, suggestions ") should have some kind of exclusivity and promotion from Netvibes or they could just be "rented" to Netvibes .
   
2. creating "single widgets" to be placed on Netvibes and other platforms and selling that audience to Advertisers
3. getting an exclusive deal with Netvibes as their only Advertising Sales agency selling cumulative or targetted audiences to Advetisers

For all of those, I would need some agreement from Netvibes and more data on the actual users.

And you will correctly guess which is my preferred solution at the moment...

If there are many others with ideas like this, netvibes could have found its business model.

How Netvibes could look with Ads by Google ?

Hi,

I was trying to figure out how Netvibes would look if it was getting some (big) revenues from an Advertising Agreement with Google.

I think it probably would look like this:

The Netvibes-looklike page is from http://www.wireseek.com/

Netvibes uses Promotional Ad Banner

Hi,

For those who have not used Netvibes for some days or for those not focused on Revenues, I want to point out the use for the first by Netvibes itself of an an Promotional Advertising Banner to announce its new mobile service directly in every Netvibes page.

"Netvibes goes mobile! Now, you can check your netvibes page on your mobile phone or your iPhone at the following address: http://m.netvibes.com".

As you can see from the image, this yellowish banner, is positionned just under your Tabs row.

Personnaly, if the banner was placed in the Netvibes Headline and never blincking, I do not think that that would disturb me very much if the service offered by Netvibes was to be increased. So a potential source of revenues? I think so, because Ads is the easiest way to do it!

As Tariq Krim, said in August 2006 :"Netvibes will remain free of charge" , that is not incompatible with some kind of Advertising.

New: Netvibes Premium Universes

Hi,

Netvibes is announcing the creation of Premium Universes.

A Netvibes Univers brings together and delivers on a single Netvibes page all of a brand's rich online media, including RSS feeds, websites, podcasts, videos, blogs, photos, stores and widgets, which can be remixed according to each user's personal preferences and interests.

Premium Universes are the same but the Premium Netvibes Univers is embeded in the Web site of the Announcer. Check here the Premium Universe of Le Figaro Newspaper web site called Myfigaro and you will see the Url is: http://www.lefigaro.fr/monfigaro/.

You can add feeds, widgets or all the tab to your own Netvibes page.

If you click on the upper left side link of the embeded Netvibes Univers "go to your own private Netvibes page" you go there but with the new Upper Headline from the Figaro.

Fred Mini, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Netvibes, in his French blogs adds "for those interested" that these Premium Universe are "Not for Free"... That means that could be a "source of revenues".

What I do not understand is the interest for the Netvibes partner/announcer .
If I can import the single Premium Univers feed or widget in my own Netvibes page, I will no more be exposed to the "contestual world" of the Announcer...

And if in the future, if this Embeded Netvibes is a success, then the hundred of cloned applications will be available to integrate this kind of Feeds Aggregator service in any website.

The New York Times has just followed another way. They have built their own Netvibes like starting page called My Times: a free service that lets you create a personalized page with what you like best in The New York Times and your favorite sites and blogs from all over the Web. This personalized service makes it easy to read all that you like, from one central place.


If you want to choose between the 750 Universes offered by Netvibes go here.

Want a clone of Netvibes for US$399 ?

Hi,

Again reading my stats for this blog, I noticed a search on Google for : scripts netvibes clone.

And here is what I found on the ALSTRASOFT page:

"AJAX DeskTop StartPage Enterprise is our latest range of web 2.0 AJAX based application that allows you to start your very own personal start page service just like Netvibes.com, iGoogle & PageFlakes.com."

"StartPage Enterprise also features a unique "Drag and Drop" interface that allows your users to easily add or remove widgets from their pages making it truly a simple to use and fun tool for all your web users."

And the cost ? Well ... just US$399 for AJAX DeskTop StartPage Enterprise (Single license + 1 year updates)

If Netvibes has copyright or Marketing skills here is a new source of revenues.

By the way, Alstrasoft has many customers complaining: just read this Alstrasoft Nightmares page and this one...

Netvibes' new frontier : Content

Hi,

Ok Netvibes is there. A good platform to put my (yours) own tabs and widgets but if Netvibes wants to count in "real millions" of users instead on thousands it should be more interested in Content.

See why .

I just discovered a site founded two years ago, by then-fifteen-year-old Kamran Munshi, that is aggregating real estate and location data. The site is called Terabitz.

And Wired Blog describs Terabitz as "Ajax-ified, with a responsive, drag-and-drop interface that lets you view a dashboard showing various aspects of the real estate market for areas you're interested in. You can decide which metrics are interesting to you: Housing prices, rental prices, recent real estate transactions, local school info, the locations of banks, grocery stores, and libraries, and more. Each one of these items is a module you can drag onto your dashboard. If you want to compare locations you can point the same dashboard view at a different town or ZIP code."

How do they will make money ?

Here is their answer: Terabitz will always be free to you, the user.We are different than other real estate sites in how we make money as well. Rather than traditional advertising, we allow companies to introduce you to themselves in a highly localized, contextual fashion. Appropriate service providers can sponsor targeted category bits on the site as you use them, so you see only relevant information as you research. Everyone wins.

And Venture Beat describes Terabitz with: "Think of it as a cross between a personal homepage (like iGoogle or Netvibes, for example) and a real estate information site (like Trulia or Zillow)."

So, Terabitz is a "Specialized Netvibes" that will look for advertising, sponsorship, fees on local ads, .... No surprise Terabitz launches, with $10 million in venture funding!

So will Netvibes educate the masses and leave to others the juicy niches or is it going to create, develop, capture them ? Wait and see.

About Widgets Monetization and Netvibes_part 2

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:

http://www.widgetcon.com/marketing.html;

http://www.agerhart.com/web-20/why-your-business-needs-widgets/;

http://www.agerhart.com/web-20/why-your-business-needs-widgets/;

http://podmetrics.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/widgetworld-the-distributed-web-6132007/

)

Revenues of Netvibes could come from Widget Monetization

Hi,

in the same interview discussed here, Tariq Krim, Ceo and founder of Netvibes, says more aboutpossible future revenues.

On Revenues, Tariq Krim is explicit when he says that RSS will only give marginal revenues and that he believes more on Widgets monetization. "We work at the moment with numerous partners on monetization and branding of the Widgets".

"Widgets monetization is exploding".

"CBS has chosen Netvibes to widgetize the broadcasting of their videos on the web. The movies Rush Hours 3 with Jacky Chan or Hairspray with John Travolta use our Universes to promote the launch of their movies in the USA."

As Tariq Krim is not clear on the ways to do that Widget Monetization, here are some good ways to it:
1) Ads in the widget.
2) Ads within the content in the widget. Individual posts can contain advertising.
3) Ads between the posts within the widget. It is possible to have ads in between certain posts (e.g. between the second and third articles.)
4) Pre-roll/post-roll in a video in the widget.

(from http://walkerfenton.blogspot.com/search/label/widget%20monetization)

So far, the discussion around monetization has centered on how publishers can monetize the widgets that people embed on other sites.
Perhaps this is the wrong question – or an incomplete question. Maybe the discussion should be around how the widget itself can be a monetization platform for the host site.

(from: http://www.sexywidget.com/my_weblog/2006/12/widgets_and_mon.html)

Interesting page to read if you are interested:
http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/four-factors-determine-how-much-a-facebook-app-is-worth/

to be continued...

Tariq KRIM interviewed after CHAPPAZ quits Netvibes

Hi,

Tariq KRIM (CEO and founder of Netvibes) has given his first interview at neteco.com a French website about the net economy. and he speaks about the situation after former Co-CEO Pierre Chappaz has left the company with some other top managers.

First, Tariq presents the Top Managers of Netvibes:
Franck Mahon , Lead product manager
Francois Hodierne, Chief Architect
Freddy Mini, COO
Annabelle Malherbe, CFO

On the points of disagreement with Pierre Chappaz , Tariq Krim says:
" I did not share with (Pierre) him the urgency to compromise our product strategy by offering services as third partiy suppliers ."

On the Competition from Wikio (founded and managed by Pierre Chappaz) with their new RSS service, Tariq Krim says that Netvibes is already the Third Source for RSS reading (according to Feedburner : well here we see Fourth...)

On Revenues, Tariq Krim is explicit when he says that RSS will only give marginal revenues and that he believes more on Widgets monetisation. "We work at the moment with numerous partners on monetization and branding of the Widgets".

Tariq Krim clarifies also that there was no disagreement with Chappaz on the Exit strategy or Selling Out.

Netvibes needs strong VIRAL APPROACH

Thanks for your comments!

But at the end of the day, Pierre CHAPPAZ, the WEB 1.0 entrepreneur (Kelkoo and Yahoo) , has left.
That means that for him there was no Business Future for Netvibes worth to wait for.
Stop.

If we want to be able to use Netvibes in the future with better functions, Netvibes has to become a succesful WEB 2.0 company.it

For that itwill be necessary for Netvibes to find ways to create:

1) revenues streams
2) customer fidelity
3) higher circulation

According to me, Netvibes will achieve that only with a unique, clear and strong VIRAL APPROACH. The VIRAL APPROACH needs to be applied not only to Marketing but also to Revenues...

How?

Well... As always, I have a little idea about how to achieve that.

Users can be customers, sucribers or ... ?

Let me know.

Pierre CHAPPAZ, co-CEO, quits Netvibes

Hi,

Pierre CHAPPAZ, co-CEO of Netvibes since June 2006, has just announced on his Blog that he was quitting Netvibes on a desagreement with founder Tariq Krim over the Business Model of Netvibes.

Chappaz, also founder and CEO of Wikio, has pointed out that since the beginning there was a different point of vue over the future of Netvibes and that the actual development of the Universes of Netvibes was not in line with his own ideas.

The main objective of Pierre Chappaz , who in in 2004 already sold Kelkoo to Yahoo for €475 million, was to find ways to create a solid distribution and a way to make money... That seems not already the case.

Pierre Chappaz writes that he remains shareholder of Netvibes, but for how long?

The actual Business Model of Netvibes is not clear... and Tariq Krim, founder and co-CEO of Netvibes is reported to have said: "Once users are happy, I am sure the revenue model will make itself clear."

Pierre Chappaz was not patient enough...

In the mean time Tariq Krim is enjoing the new i-phone , he just bought in San Francisco...

Future Business Revenues for Netvibes

Hi,

The Branded Universes step by Netvibes, is in line with what Tariq Krim announced back in 2006 and that I have reported here concerning the Business Model of Netvibes.

"... Netvibes was going to try to get distribution deals with big media companies to have branded personalized homepages. That sounds like a promising business, but skepticism prevails. "

Well done Tariq ! You did what you said !