December Payments On Tap Next Week

Publishers should keep an eye out for December earnings payments starting Monday, Feb. 4. Consistent with previous month's payments, PayPal funds are being distributed first, followed by mailed checks.

One additional important update: A Dec. 31 data issue with one of our feed providers has now been resolved, and we updated both MyWidgets and MyBucks pages to reflect earnings for that day. Payments sent next week will include earnings for the entire month, including Dec. 31st.

- Dean

2008: The Year of the Ad Widget

Hi everyone. Matt, CEO of Mpire here. I haven't contributed to this blog lately so thought I'd swing by, say hello, thank everyone for your continued support of WidgetBucks, and share a few thoughts on what I see ahead in the wild world of widgets.

First, a quick snapshot of the business. We continue to see great adoption of WidgetBucks, impressions are increasing each month, and we should reach the 2 billion impression mark by Valentine's Day. We have all of you to thank for this success, and appreciate your patience through some of our growing pains. Early next week, we'll be making December earnings payments to publishers -- our third such cycle. Even with this success, we continue to innovate, test and communicate with publishers to help maintain our focus on optimizing our ad widget network.

With the online ad and widget industries both evolving at break-neck speeds, I find myself constantly reading to stay ahead. I came across this fantastic and timely piece on GigaOm -- and wanted to share it with you. I found it so compelling because it captures much of the buzz around widgets today. Recent media chatter, including the GigaOm piece, are beginning to make 2008 look like the Year of the Ad Widget (this, after Newsweek declared 2007 the Year of the Widget). Many suggest an increasing push toward monetizing the millions of consumer eyeballs using widgets today. Some feel the RockYous, Slides and Clearsprings of the world -- essentially all consumer-facing widget platforms -- will find this a formidable mountain to climb. Even the ad widget networks that are seeing success around money-making widgets (i.e. WidgetBucks) are facing challenges, such as making sure our widgets continue to engage consumers without falling victim to user "ad blindness." We're embracing this challenge by constantly evaluating new approaches, technology and strategies to stay a step ahead. In fact, this quarter, we'll be announcing additional products and features, such as widget skinning, the expansion of monetizable widget content, and wide availability of YieldSense, which automatically transforms itself into a PPC, CPM or CPA ad widget on the fly, depending on highest yield.

"Those focused on a more ad-centric model are going ahead with their plans to use the widget as a more interactive billboard, but companies like Slide and RockYou may find that strategy more difficult." -- GigaOm, "Widget Me This," 1/26/08

Regardless of the various challenges and approaches -- consumer-centric or ad-centric widgets -- it remains to be seen if the two can meet in the middle and help the Year of the Ad Widget live up to its name. We certainly hope this happens -- it will be good for all of us in the industry. We are confident in our approach of creating an ad widget network first followed by a good consumer experience, and continue to work on refining that balance.

Where do you think widgets are headed this year?

Cheers,

Matt

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Matt Hulett
CEO, Mpire Corporation (the creators of WidgetBucks)
matt@mpire.com

Tip of the Day: PPC + CPM = Total Impressions

Over the last couple of weeks, we've responded to a number of publishers asking about impressions that are apparently uncounted or underrepresented. As we've dug more deeply into these inquiries and communicated with these publishers, we've discovered the issue is largely due to the fact that only PPC (pay-per-click) impressions are shown on the MyWidgets page’s default (“Widgets”) view. To get a full picture of total impressions, you will need to also look at the “CPM Ad” tab. The Widgets tab displays PPC impressions, while the CPM Ads tab shows CPM impressions. Click on the screenshot at right to see examples of the two tabs.

Starting mid next week, we've decided to improve this display by showing a roll-up of Widget/PPC and CPM impressions and revenue to complement the existing tabbed information. Additionally, impressions, revenue and other related info will be totaled at the bottom of each each tabbed page. This screenshot gives an early sneak peek of what publishers can expect to see on their MyWidgets pages when this rolls out (the red boxes show the affected areas). NOTE: the figures displayed are for mock-up purposes only.

Here is a summary of the upcoming MyWidget page updates:

• A "roll-up" view of Widget/PPC and CPM impressions and revenue, including their pie chart equivalents
• Column totals for all relevant columns in the Widgets and CPM tab views
• The default date range upon login will be set to "This Month." This eliminates the need for publishers to adjust the date range during each visit, while still giving flexibility to manually select dates.
• A "notes" feature will be added (along with a corresponding entry field in the New/Edit Widget pages). For each widget, we are providing publishers with the ability to add internal notes that won't appear on the widget itself. For instance, a publisher can note a particular ad position (i.e. "right sidebar above About Me") or any info on recent adjustments (i.e. "changed to blue 1/28/07") in order to better keep track of their changes. Site visitors will still see the main widget "Name" assigned by the publisher.

- Dean

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