The Widget News keep coming

Three developments in the widget world:

- Google announced this week the launch of Gadget Ads (BTW: Why do they call them gadgets and not widgets? Is being different for Google so important?)
- Cory Treffiletti reflects in his column 'If Widgets Morph Into Spyware, Bad Things Could Happen' about the possibility that widgets will be used by malicious marketers. Remember Spam?
- Yours truly was featured in an Automotive News article (Subscription required). I won't bore you with my brilliant quotes, just add a good remark by Pam Webber.

“It's the difference between push and pull marketing,” says Pam Webber, a vice president of Widgetbox, a San Francisco company that creates widgets.

“People will use widgets to be more discerning in what online information they experience, because they can actively pick and choose it. Consumers will be able to pull whatever content they want and, in turn, will have more control over the advertising they absorb.”

As I said in a previous post, widgets are the marketing fad of the year. We'll see spyware widgets, more and more useless widgets, great widgets that can't break through the widget clutter and a few very successful widgets.

Widgets are not magical solutions to every marketing problem.
They are a great supplement to your overall campaign.

Conversational Marketing is where the real game is.
Widgets help bridge the gap between push and pull. They are interesting hybrids: Created as a push mechanism for marketers to communicate their message. The only pull mechanism is the necessity for users to download. If your widget is just another media push unit, the pull will quickly disappear because users will push the Uninstall button very quickly.