WidgetBucks Creates Customer Council

With WidgetBucks' October launch and explosive growth -- a billion ad impressions in our first 83 days -- we continue to innovate to help our publishers make money. At the same time, we are recognizing the need for deeper customer involvement in our development process. As a result, we have formed the WidgetBucks Customer Council (WBCC), a group of 10-15 hand-picked (and undisclosed) customers that are serving as a sounding-board for new developments in our network. This group will get previews of upcoming features, requests to test new widgets, and be asked to provide their feedback on both various aspects of our network, with the ultimate goal of helping us do as much listening as we are innovating.

One example of new features and technology being tested by the WBCC is YieldSense(TM), a contextual, pay-per-click (PPC) ad widget that displays the highest yielding product categories and ad creative based on a revenue score that is automatically generated from past performance. We anticipate YieldSense (and specific details about it) to be more widely available in February.

Another upcoming example is pre-roll advertising within our ad widgets. With pre-roll, a branded ad appears momentarily before the shopping widget, giving advertisers the ability to market within specific product categories, such as electronics, video games and computers. Again, more details available in February.

We feel this group will be an invaluable help, and appreciate in advance the time, energy and feedback they'll be providing.

To see a preview demo of WidgetBucks' smart ads, click here .

- Dean