The term that used to just refer to a fictitious product in Economics 101, has become a term for an Internet marketing tool - that is poised for exponential growth this year. A web widget is a small module of content that users primarily add to profile pages on social media sites, or to blog pages.

According to projections from eMarketer, US companies will nearly triple spending from 15 million in 2007 to about 40 million in 2008 to create widgets, as well as to promote and distribute them. Widgets are estimated to be used by 69 million adults and 15 million teens, or nearly 50% of the adult internet population and 77 percent of the teen internet users, according to eMarketer.

While web widgets are primarily used by social networkers and bloggers, they are also used by ad networks and affiliate networks to bring in live content, including: advertisements, links and images. The embedded code from web widgets can bring in this content without requiring the website owner to update site content. Companies can use web widgets to improve a site using syndicated, dynamic content and functionality from the ad and affiliate networks.

The marketing potential of widgets is exciting, and the growth of this marketing tool should mirror that of social networks - which are forecast to have an ad dollars increase from $920 million in 2007 to reach 1.56 billion in 2008.

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Widgets: tripling growth this year

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