Advertising on Widgets

No longer is a widget simply something you’d find in a can of Boddingtons.

This post was found on the MIT Adverlab blog:

“Widgets are tiny web applications that sit on user desktops and deliver content without relying on the browser. Some are are fun but fairly useless, like the Staples' Easy button that sits on my computer next to the Wrigley-looking WinAmp, yet others can come very handy; check out the UPS Shipment Tracker and the Starbucks Card balance checker. Widgets are created with Yahoo's Widget Engine (formerly known as Konfabulator), which is a JavaScript runtime engine for Windows and Mac OS X. The engine also needs to be installed on the users' computers for the widgets to run (more info on Wiki). As Marketallica's Ozgur says (in English, in Turkish), "widgets are waiting to be discovered by marketers."

The Purina widget, pictured at the top, has been downloaded 15,000 times, generating thousands of 'eyeball hours' as it sits on 15,000 desktops.