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May 6, 2007

Attack of the Advertising Widgets

Michael Arrington

47 comments »

Widgets are being turned into advertising delivery systems. Their nature - rich media applicatons that are easy to build, customize and add to a site - also make them an attractive way to add advertising to small sites. Google is now testing gadget ads, and we’ve written about services like boobox and AuctionAds (a sponsor) that easily ad affiliate advertising to a site via widgets. Last week eBay also launched “to go” widgets that let publishers embed ebay listings into websites, although for now there are no affiliate payments tied to those widgets.

Two more are coming this week. Tonight Silicon Valley-based Tumri is announcing a new product called Tumri Publisher, and Seattle’s Mpire will announce an advertising widget later this week.

Tumri Publisher, which is described here, allows users to create highly customizable widgets that promote specific products on their websites, in exchange for an affiliate or other fee. Tumri has twenty or so direct relationships with ecommerce sites like Overstock, Walmart, Shop.com and others to promote their products. Most advertising pay on a purchase, although at least one partner pays a on each click to their website.

Tumri splits revenue from the advertising 50/50 with advertising, and they say they’ll pay up to 70% of proceeds to larger publishers.

The widgets are javascript powered; the company says Flash versions are coming soon.

Tumri was founded in 2004 and has raised $6.5 million in a Series A round of financing from Shasta Ventures and Accel. They are currently closing a second round. They have 31 employees (16 in India, 15 in Silicon Valley).

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Allen Stern

    May 6th, 2007 at 9:41 pm

    The widget seems like a great mechanism for companies and sites to come together.

    I am sure the attack will become a full-on war so-to-speak.

    Imagine, you are a large company promoting goods for moms. you could buy text ads on some of those sites or offer them a nicely created widget.

    The question will be how many widgets can a site handle before:
    a. they become overwhelming to the site visitor
    b. they become a burden to the site in terms of load times

  2. ELL Fashions

    May 6th, 2007 at 9:55 pm

    I love me my widgets! There is still a crave out there for quality widgets that add value to blogs and sites alike.

  3. Lior Haner

    May 6th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

    Advertising widgets is a great idea in my opinion. Plain text ads are already focused and less spammy than banners used to be but widgets can actually serve a purpose for the users. I would prefer a widget over a regular ad any day.

  4. Yakov

    May 6th, 2007 at 10:58 pm

    Internet ads should become more catchy and better targeted. Widgets is a great implementation of this idea.

  5. eBusiness

    May 6th, 2007 at 11:24 pm

    The widget adds an extra layer of targeting to display advertising. We may be watching the next revolution in online advertising.

    http://www.ebizmba.com

  6. Dave

    May 6th, 2007 at 11:30 pm

    I love widgets and Im glad to see they are being taken more seriously within the corporate realm. I also love auctionads, which is why I created an auctionads plugin for wordpress (see my website).

  7. KR

    May 6th, 2007 at 11:37 pm

    the key to these widgets will the the ability to provide dynamic information. as you change your prices, sales, promotions, the ad can dynamically show those changes.
    a natural progression for adsense type technology.

  8. Sundar Krishnamurthy

    May 7th, 2007 at 12:05 am

    Michael, thanks for writing about Tumri, truly appreciate it! (Full disclosure first — I am the Senior Director of Marketing for Tumri.)

    We believe Tumri AdPod and Tumri Publisher will change the way ads are delivered — giving control to website publishers and delivering it via an interactive ad is just the beginning.

    For those of you interested in Tumri Publisher, check out the how-it-works video we created — you can find it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAstBOTcprI.

    Thanks,
    Sundar

  9. Kewtr

    May 7th, 2007 at 6:37 am

    Just my opinion, but 50/50 is an atrocious revenue split. That’s 50% of the 3-10% that the affiliate pays. It is not difficult to sign up for the affiliate programs for these companies at all, and if you’re taking the tie to customize a widget for a particular product you might as well learn to do it all and get 100%.

    Again, just my opinion, as those widgets don’t really seem to add any value, just some HTML wrapped around affiliate feed data.

  10. vaspers the grate

    May 7th, 2007 at 7:41 am

    I personally feel that if you don’t widgetize your blog, you’re not Web 2.0

    Widgets are basically CMS components your blog platform fails to provide.

    Have been wanting to display more Previous Posts on my Blogger blog forever, but not WidgetBox has a widget (blidget? if i recall correctly) that displays more past posts.

    By using select widgets to customize and enhance our blogs, we make them more interactive or functional for our purposes and for our readers.

    A discreet ad placed in a widget? No problem, generally. I want widget makers to make money, but if money is the main thing, I am afraid we’ll slip into the “don’t worry be crappy” vortex of con job Web 2.0 fast buck reflex.

    If you have an “exit strategy” for a business model, you are a crash and burn exploiter VC.

    Passionate developers have no “exit strategy”, like Stephan Tual of Terapad, and that guy at Fuel My Blog, they are devoted and in for the long haul for user satisfaction and secure brand loyalty.

  11. vaspers the grate

    May 7th, 2007 at 7:47 am

    Good point also Lior Haner et alia about how a widgetized ad, an ad that provides a valuable function or feature, is a nice idea.

  12. vaspers the grate

    May 7th, 2007 at 7:48 am

    Widget makers: are they polling or otherwise data mining the blogosphere to discover what CMS components are most desired as sidebar widgets?

  13. Graeme Thickins

    May 7th, 2007 at 7:59 am

    It was only a matter of time before widgets blended into ads. Calling it “the next revolution in online advertising” sure seems to fit with Google now playing in it.

    The topic that isn’t being addressed well, however, is how will adding all this Javascript and Flash code to your site affect its performance? One or two widgets (ads) per site might not be a big issue, but what happens when a site loads on 5 or 10 or more of these code snippets from multiple, different sources?

  14. vaspers the grate

    May 7th, 2007 at 8:42 am

    Graeme Thickins: your splendid point, also mentioned earlier, is vital.

    However, most Web 2.0 shuns the “monkey” newbies and unbroadbanded unwashed masses, appealing to the super cluetrained-in.

    Thus, I have upwards of 10 widgets on my blog, may re-install Digg and Doc Searls feedrolls to sidebar, and have no complaints.

    But a Pollcode (this is unincentivized remark mind you) on this question, in my sidebar, yet another widget, is now desired, since you press the issue, rightly and wisely.

    I also am polling readers about Snap Previews. Contrary to my finest geek colleagues, I’m getting like 98% in favor of preview panels pop-ups, as user nav enhancement. I agree with my user base.

  15. vaspers the grate

    May 7th, 2007 at 8:46 am

    BTW is Snap Preview Panel considered a widget?

    I guess so, since it is “added code that supplies a user-friendly solution for the perceived deficiency of a platform CMS, thus increasing overall functionality/feature value of the site”, the very definition of a Web 2.0 widget, eh?

  16. Metagg

    May 7th, 2007 at 8:57 am

    Ahh Widgets, they are like the animated gifs and blinking text of Web 2.0…-Metagg

  17. Gal Josefsberg

    May 7th, 2007 at 9:05 am

    Vaspers,
    It’s not just performance, it’s also look and feel. I’m experimenting with various ad solutions on my blog and I’ve found that many readers dislike the cluttered approach. At this point I’d rather keep things simple with few ads and build up my reader base. Maybe later, I’ll add a few more.

    GJ
    http://www.60in3.com

  18. Eric Alterman

    May 7th, 2007 at 10:22 am

    We’ve been creating viral widget ads at KickApps for a while now and see great promise in this form of ad unit. We are optimizing our widget engine in our next release for very flexible advertising deployments on the assumption that media management and combining multiple feeds and links will be the key to this market. Incidentally, we’ve been calling these ad units “WidgeAds”…most people seem to like it. Eric

    Eric Alterman
    Founder/Chairman KickApps Corporation
    http://communityincontext.typepad.com/blog/

  19. MetroBellevue

    May 7th, 2007 at 10:37 am

    I love this idea of delivering ads through widgets. Read about it last week with the Ebay widget. What’s missing now is a good and solid affiliate program for these widget ads!

  20. Gizmoojo

    May 7th, 2007 at 11:13 am

    We have been doing amazon widget ads for a while..and the widget is published on widgetbox with 330 subscriptions and serving 2,038 hits last 7 days, 134,572 total so far.
    Our ads are more dynamic and revenue is 100% returned to publisher. We only support amazon associates for now.

  21. Vaspers is Vapid

    May 7th, 2007 at 11:25 am

    “Thus, I have upwards of 10 widgets on my blog, may re-install Digg and Doc Searls feedrolls to sidebar, and have no complaints.”

    You also have no readers.

  22. patricia

    May 7th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    Good to know. Agree that it’s an obvious extension. I love when technologies made for one thing find a new place in another, like click-to-call technologies last year.

    Advertising is such a mess. So many things, so many directions, so much money, but still a long way from knowing what’ll stick and what works. It’s going to be interesting to see how that industry plays out.

  23. vaspers the grate

    May 7th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

    Anonymous Trolls are driveby abuse posters. They make silly claims like “you have no readers” when my loyal readers include Doc Searls, Jason Calacanis, and luminaries that are so high above the 13 year old Harry Potter worshipers who troll TC, it’s hilarious.

  24. vaspers the grate

    May 7th, 2007 at 2:44 pm

    Clutter on a blog is a very real concern for aesthetics, credibility, and usability.

    I agree with you all on that.

    Oh, how we masochistically hate ourselves for having too many widgets, or not enough. We grope heroically as the juvenile trolls wonder why nobody pays any attention to them.

  25. vaspers the grate

    May 7th, 2007 at 2:46 pm

    Vaspers is Vapid

    see how easy it is to computelepathically erase the ghost of that troll?

  26. Blendah Tom

    May 7th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

    I think you guys are missing the big picture.. it’s not just blogs.. Where I see huge value is on MySpace pages and alike.. really targeted widgets that are CPA/PPA based… I can see some companies empowering their users to create their own widgets and becoming affiliates..

  27. Al Ramirez

    May 7th, 2007 at 6:50 pm

    Tumri has a very cool tool and it helps a smaller site get their foot in the door when they may not meet the traffic criteria for the affiliate programs with big names like a Wal-Mart whose products or services would otherwise be a better revenue producing opportunity than text ads from Google alone. 50% is a helluva lot better than zero.

  28. JPL

    May 7th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    spinback.com does this

  29. VishyFishy

    May 8th, 2007 at 12:15 am

    Just read about a new desktop widget Tafri on businesshackers that seems to take the whole advertising widget beyond the browser.
    They seem to be only doing this for travel deals and have married things like social networking and UGC into it, but seems like a good idea for other aspects of e-commerce as well to make the ads more non-intrusive

  30. VishyFishy

    May 8th, 2007 at 12:17 am

    http://www.businesshackers.com.....ingertips/ the article in case anyone wants to dig more before commenting

  31. Kula bácsi

    May 8th, 2007 at 5:27 am

    My usercontent.css in Firefox takes care of these ad-widget shits!

  32. Christopher Lozinski

    May 8th, 2007 at 8:40 am

    I think that the age of advertising is behind us. Widgets are about providing useful content to the blog reader. My job board widgets provide an interesting list of jobs to the blog reader, in a given profession. He can click on a job, but it does not take him away from the site, he sees the job on the site. He can post his resume, or post a job, right there, on the site. I am not adverting his attention from the site, I am proving relevant content and functionality.

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