Archive for the ‘Widget Monetization’ category

WebsiteMusicPlayer — Secure Transaction widget for Artists

December 27th, 2009

WebsiteMusicPlayer is an embeddable Flash music player widget that allows artists to securely sell their music. There are feature like encrypted download links that can be set to allowone download or a limited number of downloads. Also available are metrics that allow the artist to easily see how many items they have sold.
Transactions are done through PayPal in order to offer an easily recognizable standard that most users will feel comfortable with.

WebsiteMusicPlayer is not a free service. They make their money via monthly or yearly subscriptions. There is no “per purchase” fee.

How does it work?

At any time while listening to your music, the listener can click each checkbox each one of your songs to select each song that they want to buy.

Next they click the ‘Click Here To Order’ (or your own custom text) button that is prominently displayed on the bottom of your player and an order summary page will open in a new window.

On this new page they click the ‘Proceed To Checkout’ button and will be brought to a payment screen where they can either pay you by credit card or use their existing Paypal® funds. This money is instantly deposited into your Paypal® account.

After successful payment, the customer is forwarded to a download page that contains only the songs that they’ve paid for. These protected download links are also emailed to the customer.

The customer is only allowed to download each song a set number of times (determined by you in your settings), after which the download links expire and delete themselves to prevent them from being shared.

Widget customization options:

A lot of thought went into making the color of your player as easy as possible to customize. It’s very simple to make it so the player color matches any website you want it to appear on.

In your account there’s an area where you can create, save, edit and delete custom player color schemes so that multiple color schemes are available to fit each website you embed the player in.

Each time you add the player to a different website it can have a unique color scheme.

You can set the color for the main parts of the player to any color you want. Easily select the color from a color picker interface or enter the html color value if you know it.

You can also edit the order button text at the bottom of the player in addition to the optional music licensing button that is provided by LicenseQuote.com .

http://www.websitemusicplayer.com/index.php

Scoble Visits WidgetBucks

March 16th, 2009

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WidgetBucks, the controversial Widget Advertising company that against all odds continues to grow and polarize people received Robert Scoble not that long ago (even if in internet time it could be perceived as ancient) and he goes into a video tour with Matt Hulett, CEO of Mpire, the parent company of WidgetBucks and as TechFlash notes:

CEO Matt Hulett takes blogger Robert Scoble on a video tour of the company’s Seattle offices, with the former RealNetworks and Expedia executive describing the WidgetBucks business as a "shopping AdSense." Hulett — who explains why each employee has his or her own office — also notes that about 100 million unique users are seeing their advertising widgets each month.

The reason i post the video is because if there is a Widget Company i receive E-mail about is WidgetBucks. people asking me to never cover them, other asking for more coverage and others asking me why it is not working with them (yeah, really)

That means it should be of interest for Widgets Lab Readers to have a look at it.

WidgetBucks

Advertising Age On Widget Marketing

December 4th, 2008

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Bob Garfield over at Advertising Age did a piece on Widget and Marketing that is truly great. it is also 101 material for anyone not only interested in Widget but also in Internet Enabled Marketing and Advertising.

Widgets Are Made for Marketing, So Why Aren’t More Advertisers Using Them?

That said. i don`t agree on the over pushy title that makes it sound as if Widget only purpose was marketing. i would have put it as “Widgets are a match made in heaven for Marketing”. but that is only because i feel the need to be nit picky with it.

My favorite phrase of the article has to be “Utility Plus Brand” as a way to define Widget Marketing and something to thought about since it inherently implies there should be something utilitarian to the Widget in the first place. that should always always translate to the widget not only have a purpose but being useful for it.  otherwise no matter how great the product you are pushing is or how great your widget analytics are everything will be pointless and a waste of time for everyone.

ZunaVision: In Video Embedding For Embeddable Video

December 4th, 2008

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The title sounds kinda Meta right?. it is. ZunaVision main goal is to be able to embed thing inside videos that you usually embed over the internet. that means no more ad overlays or pre or post roll ads would be needed. the very ads or object you would want to embed will be part of the video. that means you could not skip the ads since they will be part of the video your are seeing. just like in Sports. that is certainly quite something. it also goes beyond advertising. but advertising and brand marketing are the most benefited areas if you want to have a more effective monetization. i think the model for it would be as simple as Banner Advertising with the advantage of knowing your ad was seeing and not that it is probable it had been seen.

They way it works also brings to mind and export ideas of in Game Ads because of the execution you get. but as i said. with a video you can be sure the ad was seen since it is integral part of the video and not a segment. that alone changes the game and make ZunaVision concept a very alluring one.

This is without a doubt a kind of technology that is very plausible to consider it will be around in the future and that may become mainstream as the main barrier for it gets conquered. and that barrier is simple acceptance from the viewer.

ZunaVision

For more on ZunaVision. Sarah Perez over at RWW did a great post on this too i can recommend as worthwhile:

Embed Ads In User-Generated Videos With ZunaVision

 

SproutMixer: Widget Advertising & Marketing For All

December 3rd, 2008

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SproutMixer is the brother site to SproutBuilder. The latter lets you create very simple and easy media widgets or very very basic utility widgets. This is not the goal of SproutMixer. its goal is to bring money to sprout and to others because it about reusing the technology developed to create Sproutbuilder to allow easy creation of  Ad Widgets for Direct Advertising or for Brand Marketing with good analytics and high spread sharing qualities.

The problem before with bringing solid Analytics to Flash Widgets was that it failed to be deeply integrated with the flash object. it also needed to be developed by each Widget Company on their own and its was a very strong theme in widgets in 2008. the Widget Companies that invested more on Widget Analytics and understanding what that meant was Clearspring followed by Gigya and Musestorm. This left out other Widget Companies in disadvantage since they could not invest as heavily on that.

Google now has cutout the work for all Widget Companies by Working with Adobe to bring Google Analytics to Flash Objects. this breakthrough finally will make sure that Ad Widgets and Widget Advertising can grow a lot faster on 2009. of course that Google to be interested in this is because they are both the biggest blessing and curse to all Widget Companies. because while they bring good technology that can now be used by all. they also bring Hard Competition since they compete in the Widget Space in practically all areas. from Desktop widgets to web widgets and from media Widgets to Ad Widgets.  

This means that the hard work on Analytics by the Widget Companies i mentioned will not go to waste and will be useful to keep competing all around.

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SproutMixer could not be easier to use. it is the very same ease of use of its older brother at SproutBuilder. so the only thing that changes is the Focus of what is being done and the why.

Since Google Analytics can now work for Flash. Sproutmixer was the perfect way to Demo the benefits from that because they are not only Advertising and Marketing Widgets. they are also remixable. that means you can change the way these widget look and obtain another level of user engagement thanks to that. in a way that should make Marketers savory it since it is all trackable.

And not only they are remixable. but they also count with a  High Spread Sharing provided by Gigya Wildfire.

Really Cool Stuff that will surely assure that Widgets don`t lose steam on 2009.

SproutMixer