Do you have your own facebook page? Absolutely. MSN messenger? Of course. Gmail? I think so. MySpace? Maybe.Google Reader? Maybe. Google Picasa?Maybe….
And what do you have in your facebook? iLike?iRead?SuperWall?MyMood?Slide?Movie Compare?……or even Douban?
Let’s say that new media has already become part of our lives. The above widget or gadgets or blog bling or mini applications or whatever you want to call it are now spreading on the internet like wild weeds. Yahoo has launched its Widget platform recently. And my google reader is now full of articles commenting on it. Most of the articles give a quite positive outlook, putting Yahoo Widget together with Facebook and MySpace. I can’t help but wonder what makes all those huge internet players all join the game?
It started with the momentous thing when Facebook decided to open its platform to advertisers and developers, inviting them to create applications, sometimes called widgets, that can be shared from user to user. Then consumers can choose to add the application on their own page and recommend to friends in their own circles. And before you know it, the applications have reach very high adoption rates.
As this emerging media starts to see greater adoption rates, advertising via this medium is doomed to come. The famous Red Bull, for instance, has created a branded version of rock-scissors-paper, called “Roshambull,” as an advertorial for its energy drinks, while Warner Bros. Records has released the first single and video from the White Stripes’s latest album in widget form. And I already start to imagine an application with which people can portray their favourite cigarettes, which could be something for tobacco companies.
Apart from facebook, now Google, Apple and Yahoo Widgets have also developed similar widgets and bring the world of information to consumers desktops. And with no doubt, all of them entail advertising in one way or another.
There are some obvious strength of this kind of advertising methods:1. It’s easily accesible. 2. The ads are extremely relevant. They enable brands to form a direct relationship with their consumers and allows them to engage them in a personalized way.They are like personal recommendations from your friends and spread from circles to circles. Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth! 3.It’s less advertising-based. Most of the widgets bring consumers fun and people recommend them to their friends. And that’s how brand awareness grow.
However, there are still some potential risks. Whether consumers actually want to become product marketers is another question entirely. And when those applications become too much ad-like, consumers will start to detest the whole function.
Andyway, now we can already see Facebook, Microsoft and Google trying very hard to have their own bite of the share, with Yahoo joining the game recently. The question is: Will Widgets Marketing be the next best thing? I’m sure we’ll find out the answer soon, as any other things which happens in the web world.
