Sexy Widget

Widgets and Monetization

I like to think about the value chain for widgets consisting of 1) publishing; 2) distribution); 3) analytics; and 4) monetization.

Right now there’s an explosion of activity on the publishing and distribution fronts.  Pete Cashmore hints at the barrage of new widget announcements that he is receiving over at Mashable.  Musestorm is working on a service that will help any content publisher generate and distribute widgets without any programming knowledge.  Snipperoo and Widgetbox continue to work on making it easier for web surfers to find and manage their widgets.  And the MySpace enabled widget industry continues to roll.

But to date, not too much has happened on the analytics side (Musestorm and Clearspring are two companies that I know of that are addressing this), and even less on the monetization side. 

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.  For example, the Bitty Browser (bitty.com) embeddable browser widget is now being used by tech magazine Information Week to allow advertisers to provide an interactive experience without leaving the Information Week pages.  As opposed to forcing the reader to click away from the host site when interacting with an ad, the Bitty Browser powered ad platform allows the reader to get more info and browse through case studies without ever clicking away.

As Steve Rubel points out, using an embedded browser also enables better analytics about how consumers are interacting with those ads.

What’s brilliant about this strategy is that it provides a new take on two proven commercial widget applications – Google AdSense and affiliate programs like Amazon Associates.  If the Bitty Browser powered ad model takes off, I would expect to see it start to mirror AdSense and Amazon Associates.  It’s not a stretch to imagine Bitty Browser as a clearinghouse for publishers and advertisers where Bitty matches advertisers with publishers (or allows self selection), and publishers can grab a snippet of widget code just like they can on AdSense or Amazon.

While AdSense is primarily CPC driven (with some CPM), and Amazon is commission driven, I wonder what format this widget powered ad model will take?  Will it be CPM?  Will it be CPC?  Or should it be calculated with some new indicator based on consumer engagement with the widget?

I also wonder about how consumers will react to this format.  A widget powered ad format is clearly better for the publisher, as it keeps the consumer within the host site’s experience.  But will it result for better (or comparable) conversions for the advertiser?

In an industry that is almost completely dependent on advertising, I would say that it’s pretty big news when a new ad format is introduced.  Kudos to Bitty Browser and Information Week for showing some innovation.

Razz Widget - A Review

Razz  specializes in audio software that allows people to mix sound clips into their mobile phone conversations or audio recordings.

Visitors to the Razz Web site can create audio mixes consisting of user uploaded background music, user recorded audio, and Razz's specialty, little sound effect audio clips (gongs, buzzers, etc.) The Razz widget allows users to embed their Razz mixes on their blogs or SNS profile pages.

The closest thing to Razz that I have personally used is the Odeo recording studio, which also lets you embed your recordings in a widget format.  Odeo made the marketing decision to target podcasters with their recording studio, while Razz has added a bunch of sound effects to their studio to go after the teen demographic.

Applications & Opportunity

On the widget side of the business, Razz is a personalization play that hopes that user mixed audio will join other content formats like video, avatars, and quizzes as preferred forms of self expression among users of sites like MySpace and Bebo.

The audio clips include sounds like various farting noises, as well as a whole category called “risqué” that includes a wide variety of sex and alcohol themed noises – it would appear that this content is being positioned squarely in the MySpace sweet spot.

Logically, this sounds like a pretty solid strategy.  Audio is just another format, and providing folks with the tools to embed personalized audio would seem to be just as good an idea as letting folks embed videos.

In practice however, there are some troubling signs.  Odeo is no longer betting the farm on audio embeds, most likely because uptake was not what they expected.  Additionally, Razz is a well-funded company with a blue chip management team and big name backers that has been around since 2005 – yet to date, it would appear that they haven’t been able to find much traction.    

A “site:myspace.com linkdomain:razz.com” search on Yahoo! Shows seven results, including a couple of members of the management team.  This doesn’t mean that there are only seven Razz embeds on MySpace, but it’s a little troubling – the same search for Quizilla shows about 80,000 results.

So what’s the market and opportunity for customized audio embeds?  At this point, we don’t really know.  We do know that this niche has not seen the same growth as other embed verticals such as image, audio, and quizzes.

Configuration and Testing

Widgets are generated on Razz via the Razz Mixer – a Flash based recording studio that consists of three primary panels: the sound effects, the recorder, and the background music.  In order to save a widget, you need to register with the service. 

The Razz Mixer really is pretty impressive.  I had no problems uploading a track (drm-less, of course), and the controls are pretty intuitive.  My three-year-old nephew and I had a blast playing around with all of the sound effects on here – there are hundreds, if not thousands of sound effects available.

Once you’re done recording your audio, you click “save” and Razz generates the Flash based widget code.  There are no configuration options other than titling the widget, and even by going into the code to change the width, this widget does not reduce very well (as you can see).

The widget itself is nicely branded, and Razz includes the obligatory backlink below the player, in plain HTML.  As with other highly personalized widgets, a “put this widget on your site” option doesn’t work very well for Razz.  The fact that they require registration is an additional barrier to viral sharing.

You can listen to my test widget in the sidebar.

Editorial

I’m sort of at a loss on this one.  Razz is clearly an extremely professional and well-executed effort.  The remix studio is gorgeous and easy to use.  The idea is sound.  The company’s pedigree is first class.

But something isn’t clicking yet.  Maybe it’s the forced registration – if it were up to me, I’d roll the dice a little bit and let people build Razz widgets without registering, just to see if uptake improves.  You can always turn registration back on later.

There’s also something a little awkward about having such an obviously teen focused site (complete with 6 different styles of fart noises!), run by such a serious as a heart attack management team.  I don’t know what the answer for this conflict is – I mean, it is what it is, right? 

It also may just be a question of demand.  In some ways, video may have leapfrogged audio here.  Most people find video to be a more compelling medium than audio, unless you’re in a car or on a cell phone or something.

Which brings me to my final point.  It appears from the Razz site that they are hedging their bets a little bit by pushing mobile, and the ability to “Razz your friends” from your cell phone.  While I’m not yet completely buying the new vertical of “in conversation entertainment,” hedging their bet is a good call – much like Odeo / Obvious Corporation is doing with Twitter.

I'm seeing a live demo of Razz next week at CNET - I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

GiftTagging Widget – A Review

Do you need a quick and easy way to broadcast what you want for Christmas?  Then the GiftTagging widget may be for you.

I saw the GiftTagging Widget written up on TechCrunch but it was unclear to me after reading their review that this was a widget, and not just a bookmarklet.  It was only after seeing the post on Widgetoko (and later the comment by Ivan Pope), that it was clear to me that there was a GiftTagging widget.  Armed with this information, and given that the Holiday season is upon us, I set out to take this widget for a spin.

The easiest way to think of GiftTagging is as a distributed Amazon Wishlist.  The GiftTagging bookmarklet helps you pluck products that you like from Web pages, and add them to a list.  This list can be published on your blog or SNS profile page via a Flash-based widget or downloaded to your computer via a desktop widget.

GiftTagging joins a somewhat crowded distributed shopping space that includes Kaboodle, FavoriteThingz, ThisNext, and of course, all the social bookmarking sites.

Applications & Opportunity

So why is the distributed shopping space so crowded?  It’s crowded because it’s a good idea, and there’s no clear leader yet.  There are leaders in the distributed ad network space (Google AdSense) and there are leaders in the distributed payment space (Paypal), but nobody has figured out distributed shopping beyond affiliate programs.

It’s common knowledge that consumers are more likely to buy something when it’s recommended by a friend, and it’s also increasingly accepted that consumers are getting more comfortable plugging in widgets into their online presences.  Somebody is going to be able to harness these converging trends, and when they do, it’s going to be big.

Distributed shopping can take a number of forms – it can be individuals selling their own stuff (Zazzle), it can be people recommending products to their friends (Kaboodle), it can be individuals acting like distributors in order to make money (Amazon Associates), or it can be individuals letting others know what products they would enjoy receiving as gifts.  Based on their choice of domain name, GiftTagging would appear to be going after this last segment.

This is solely a marketing decision, however.  In terms of execution, there’s no reason that a variation of the GiftTagging widget couldn’t address some of the other verticals mentioned above.

Configuration and Testing

GiftTagging faces a bit of a challenge in pushing its widget, in that there is a two step process involved.  People need to install their bookmarklet in order to configure their widgets, which makes it a slightly harder sell.  In addition, GiftTagging wishlist widgets are extremely personalized – I can’t imagine a scenario in which someone sees a GiftTagging widget and says “I want that exact same wishlist on my site.”  In other words, while GiftTagging can use their widgets to sell the concept of distributed wishlists, it is unlikely they will see wildfire adoption of folks reproducing GiftTagging widgets that they see on other sites.

Despite these challenges, GiftTagging does a fairly nice job of making new visitors feel comfortable.  They immediately guide you through the process of installing the bookmarklet.  They highlight the widget functionality prominently on the home page.  When you save a product, you are informed again about the ability to make a widget.

The widget configuration process is pretty basic.  There aren’t any configuration options in terms of formatting, nor is there a preview tool.  The default size is too wide for a sidebar (which is a pet peeve of mine), and messing with the widget dimensions in the code doesn’t work very well.  After unsuccessfully trying to reduce the widget width by going into the code, I ended up embedding it as is with the 300px width – this actually didn’t work too badly, as you can see.

When configuring your widget, you are given the option of defining the widget as a wishlist, or a “products I own” list.  This gets to my point above about this widget could address multiple distributed shopping niches.

In terms of the presentation, the widget is beautifully branded, and they wisely separate out a nice backlink from the Flash player.  If it were up to me, I would point that backlink to the home page with some custom anchor text and have the Flash title point back to the user’s profile page, but deep links into the individual profile pages are not the worst SEO thing you can do. 

As mentioned previously, this widget isn’t a very good match for a sharing option, and I think that GiftTagging makes the right call by sending people back to their site to get their own widget.

All in all, the widget execution is not a bad effort, despite the obstacles of requiring a bookmarklet and having an extremely personalized widget.

Editorial

GiftTagging faces some built in obstacles that will prevent their widget from spreading like wildfire.  Requiring registration is a major hindrance to widget adoption.  Requiring registration and a bookmarklet install is a crippling blow.

Unfortunately, that would seem to be the nature of the beast for this particular company, and I don’t really blame them for these dynamics.  This is a highly personalized service that requires registration, and it requires a browser tool.  There really aren’t a lot of options here.

And I don’t want to make it sound like a widget is a bad idea for this company – it’s not.
The GiftTagging widget is a nice extension of their service and should help defray their marketing costs, and give them a little SEO pop.  For people who want to broadcast what they want for Christmas, or as a wedding present, or as a birthday present, it makes perfect sense to give them the flexibility to publish that list wherever they want.

GiftTagging does a reasonably good job at this – just don’t expect YouTube like growth from this service.