They're now ubiquitous, little devices all over the internet that help you do things, those small, free applications that can be downloaded to one's desktop, homepage or social network page, be it a quirky game or a little device that shows you how to plot a bus trip across town.
What makes them especially cool is that others can then pick them up and use them.
All this would seem to make widgets an ideal vehicle for advertisers.
“There is a lot of interest in widgets at the moment," says Rebecca Jennings, principal analyst at Forrester Research. "They have historically proved to be a good way to spread word of mouth marketing and are getting cheaper to do.”
Yet despite all the excitement over widgets, actual ad spending on them is still small. A study from eMarketer forecasts that 2008 ad spending on widgets and similar applications will only hit $40 million in the U.S. Though up from $18 million in 2007, they'll still account for just 2.5 percent of total U.S. social network ad spending.
The reason: Advertisers have yet to figure out how to use widgets to the most advantage.
“What we have seen in the past few months and late 2007 is a lot of experimentation by marketers to figure out what a widget is and how to incorporate it in online advertising strategy,” says Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer.com.
Much of the appeal of widgets is their spontaneity, so ads don't seem like ads. Rather than conveying a message, by definition a one-way proposition, widgets must be able to engage users, entertaining them in some creative way or providing a unique service.
Coming up with widgets that do that is a lot more challenging that creating a static, one-way communication.
But some advertisers are doing it. Recently, to promote its new vampire movie "30 Days of Night,” Sony rebranded a popular vampire game widget on Facebook where people bit each other to gain points.
A widget now making the rounds from Skype, aimed at promoting video calling, shows a video of a number of people laughing. People who watch the video can then add their own video, provided they have a webcam. And people are doing it. The Skype laughter chain is now four hours long.
Widgets can work well in certain viral campaigns because the engagement level is high, says Toni Smith, managing director at London-based Viral Factory, which created the Skype widget.
Another relatively new way to use widgets in advertising involves embedding a downloadable widget in a banner ad, which can then run anywhere.
Retail outlet Overstock.com, for instance, has used a mediaFORGE product to create a banner ad, with a widget in it that allows viewers to shop on the Overstock.com site without leaving the webpage they have on their screen.
The challenge of using widgets is finding the right applications, says Forrester’s Jennings. “Not everyone will be able to make a success of widgets. It depends on what kind of a message you have.”
Also important is relevance.
“People come to the internet to do things," says Philip Buxton, consultant at London-based consultants Circus Street Communications. "So if you can enable people to do things as an advertiser, then you are doing them a service and fulfilling what they are on the web to do.”
****
Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended July 6, according to Nielsen Online, Google claimed the top spot among parent companies, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online. For the sixth straight week, the top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, AOL Media Network and Microsoft.
NexTag regained the top advertiser spot with 2.4 million impressions, followed by Experian Group Limited at No. 2 with 1.7 million. With 10.8 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MySpace at 4.9 million.
Sessions per person per week were down one from the previous week to 15, and domains visited per person were down by two, to 38. PC time per person slipped 6 percent on the holiday week compared with the previous week to 16 hours and 13 minutes.
|
Top 25 parent companies
Through July 6 |
|
#
|
Parent
|
Unique Audience (000)
|
Reach %
|
Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
|
|
1
|
Google
|
92,170
|
65.7
|
0:36:44
|
|
2
|
Microsoft
|
82,964
|
59.2
|
0:43:16
|
|
3
|
Yahoo!
|
77,251
|
55.1
|
1:35:43
|
|
4
|
Time Warner
|
58,936
|
42.0
|
1:15:40
|
|
5
|
News Corp. Online
|
44,572
|
31.8
|
0:45:44
|
|
6
|
eBay
|
33,417
|
23.8
|
0:47:27
|
|
7
|
InterActiveCorp
|
28,343
|
20.2
|
0:12:41
|
|
8
|
Apple Computer
|
25,159
|
17.9
|
0:33:36
|
|
9
|
Amazon
|
24,562
|
17.5
|
0:15:35
|
|
10
|
Wikimedia Foundation
|
22,421
|
16.0
|
0:10:53
|
|
11
|
Walt Disney Internet Group
|
21,459
|
15.3
|
0:26:53
|
|
12
|
New York Times Company
|
21,423
|
15.3
|
0:08:32
|
|
13
|
Landmark Communications
|
21,361
|
15.2
|
0:11:26
|
|
14
|
Turner Network (Division)
|
20,923
|
14.9
|
0:18:36
|
|
15
|
AT&T Inc.
|
17,669
|
12.6
|
0:19:51
|
|
16
|
Comcast Corp.
|
15,809
|
11.3
|
0:27:10
|
|
17
|
Facebook
|
14,993
|
10.7
|
0:47:37
|
|
18
|
RealNetworks, Inc.
|
13,868
|
9.9
|
0:17:19
|
|
19
|
Bank of America
|
13,839
|
9.9
|
0:21:09
|
|
20
|
CNET Networks
|
13,572
|
9.7
|
0:08:24
|
|
21
|
Verizon Communications
|
13,521
|
9.6
|
0:16:16
|
|
22
|
Viacom Digital
|
13,288
|
9.5
|
0:23:50
|
|
23
|
United Online
|
12,656
|
9.0
|
0:24:31
|
|
24
|
CraigsList
|
12,581
|
9.0
|
0:36:30
|
|
25
|
E.W. Scripps Company
|
10,934
|
7.8
|
0:06:46
|
|
Source: Nielsen Online
Note: The parent level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single company or division.
|
|
Top 25 brands
Through July 6 |
|
|
Parent
|
Unique Audience (000)
|
Reach %
|
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
|
|
1 |
Google
|
83,302
|
59.4
|
0:24:51
|
|
2 |
Yahoo!
|
76,488
|
54.6
|
1:36:05
|
|
3 |
MSN/Windows Live
|
62,854
|
44.8
|
0:45:11
|
|
4 |
AOL Media Network
|
53,018
|
37.8
|
1:20:40
|
|
5 |
Microsoft
|
47,019
|
33.5
|
0:15:45
|
|
6 |
Fox Interactive Media
|
38,481
|
27.4
|
0:48:53
|
|
7 |
YouTube
|
34,735
|
24.8
|
0:31:18
|
|
8 |
eBay
|
27,188
|
19.4
|
0:50:50
|
|
9 |
Apple
|
25,159
|
17.9
|
0:33:36
|
|
10 |
Wikipedia
|
22,284
|
15.9
|
0:10:53
|
|
11 |
Amazon
|
19,657
|
14.0
|
0:14:42
|
|
12 |
Weather Channel
|
18,586
|
13.3
|
0:12:09
|
|
13 |
Blogger
|
|
