Posts Tagged ‘Widget Marketing’

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

Newsgator Widgets NFL Widget Campaign

November 4th, 2008

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I was going to dissect this but while i do like American Football is not something i am specially fond of, so i will lift from Newsgator because i feel it deserves coverage because it is a novel idea in Widget Marketing and Widget Syndication or as Newsgators puts it:

Introducing Reverse Syndication & Atomization of Content
Our Novel, NFL Widget Campaign Breaks New Ground

You know that I’m always excited about new widgets, but I’m particularly excited about the brand new type of content distribution model called reverse syndication that NewsGator and our media clients are embarking on. (For an excellent introduction to reverse syndication, I highly recommend you read Jeff Jarvis’ excellent post on the topic.)  We’re in the process of launching "Across the Field" widgets with 32 online newspapers to cover NFL games this fall and winter.  The details are fairly complicated but I hope you’ll stay with me because when you learn the new territory we’re charting, think you’ll be rightly impressed.

NewsGator is building widgets for a consortium of 32 online papers — one for each team in the NFL.  While the newspapers are not necessarily owned by the same companies, they’ve decided to share high quality content with one another in a novel way. Essentially, we’re talking about the atomization of content — where, esentially, content is broken up into many pieces and distributed (often standalone) across the web; in this case, the online newspapers we’re parterning with are atomizing their content through NewsGator widgets. (For an excellent introduction to atomization of content, check out PR Squared’s post on the subject.)

The best way to explain is through a real-life example: this week the Pittsburgh Steelers are set to play the New York Giants. Leading up to the game, the New York Daily News’s website has a widget on their sports/football page with content on the opposing team — in this case the Pittsburgh Steelers — from The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  And the reverse would be true as well: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has content from The New York Daily News on the Giants on their sports page.  In essence, they’re shared bits of atomized content in the form of opposition scouting reports from in the inside lines of the competitor’s ‘camp.’

The theory behind this specfic setup is that each online paper already has plenty of content about their home team already but much less (if any) about the opposing team; enter, stage right, the "Across the Field" widgets providing insight on the competitors’ teams. (The content in the widget will change weekly along with the game schedule.)  Even better, while the content feeding these widgets is full text RSS from the opposing team’s local newspaper, when visitors to The New York Daily News click on articles about the Pittsburgh Steelers within the widget on website, they will remain on The New York Daily News site; they are not leaving the "home" newspaper’s site — courtesy some fancy coding footwork — which increases the "stickiness" of each paper’s content offerings.

What do media clients get out of this?  A lot.  Online newspapers get (atomized) high quality content from the opposing team’s local newspaper — probably more knowledgeable than anyone; even better, these stories are hosted on their own site (leading to more page impressions) and they can place advertisements on the article pages to enhance monetization.  (Sort of a three-for-one deal.)

These "Across the Field" widgets, which represent the cutting edge of reverse content syndication & atomization of content, are a great example of some of the new and exciting directions NewsGator (and our partner clients) are proceeding in syndicating content in powerful new ways.  I’d say, from this vantage point, the future of widgets is quite bright.

Very interesting use of widgets for promotion and to explore reach enhancing and monetization opportunities. i wish to know how it fares later. so i will have it in mind for later.

Newsgator

via Newsgator blog

AOL adds Affiliate Marketing to Buy.at with Widgets

August 13th, 2008

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It is not just Social Networking Ads powered by Widgets. AOL has also added Affiliate Marketing to Buy.at with them:

"Once a publisher places a widget on their Web site, consumers can grab it and distribute the widget to other locations on the Web, including social-network pages, desktops, and blogs," a release from AOL explained. "The publisher earns revenue for each sale driven by the widget, even if it’s several download generations away from the publisher’s site."

While AOL has done badly in many areas lately. but they have done well with widgets and widgets have done well to them. i would have made the new my.AOL widget based since they got goowy /yourminis. but the same acquired widget tech is the one that will be used for bebo widget ads and for Buy.at affiliate marketing widgets. so that alone proves it was a good acquisition. too bad that there is nothing about the Goowy Desktop. it was one of the best webtops out there. it would be a shame if they just kill it. in terms of yourminis it also remains to be seen what they do with the brand and what was before they acquired it.

But right now AOL is more preoccupied with its reorganization and trying to get bought by Microsoft to be concerned about the little details. we will have to wait to the fall for this to be cleared up.

via Cnet

Lijit Gets $7M more of funding, will open Ad Network

August 12th, 2008

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Amazing what the improving and consolidation of idea with potential can bring:

Lijit, the company that develops search applications for online publishers and publisher networks, has just closed a $7.1 million Series C round of financing, led by Foundry Group. Existing investors Boulder Ventures and Colorado Fund I, managed by High Country Venture, have also participated in this round. Lijit has now raised more than $10 million in total

And they plan to bring in the money rolling in to make up for the $10 million dollars in funding they now got by launching a Ad Network. something that sounds indeed interesting. i would still like a better implementation of the search. something like the Live Search Widget so it can load faster. but the ad network is interesting and i think it should work out now they got enough footprint in blogs.

LIJIT

Lijit Raises Another $7M; Plans Ad Network Launch via Mashable

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