Google Adwords Widgets/Gadgets Coming Soon
Aug 24, 2007 Google Adwords
With all the buzz in the search engine marketing industry swirling around the Y2K-esque Adwords placement algorithm change (thus far nothing exciting), I’m going to shift gears and look at back and forward to new advertising placement opportunities. Google Adwords representatives confirmed what Marshall Sponder wrote about once upon a time - that Widgets and Gadgets will be a forthcoming placement option for Adwords advertisers with developers on staff. Although Google reps were hard pressed to give more details, we did learn that the beta should go public within the next few weeks. Now this is exciting stuff!
It’s true, Googlers are usually very tight-lipped about the goings-on behind the curtain, especially on the SES tour. To my surprise they let this one slip in a conversation today regarding blended search options on the horizon. Although there was talk about it in the blogosphere some time ago, it seems the project must have been put on a back-burner until recently.
So now that the news is confirmed, how will this impact Adwords advertisers that want to branch out? If you have developers on staff capable of writing applications in XML, Javascript, and probably AJAX, you’re good to go! If not, don’t expect Google to step up and write your applications, at least at first. Personally, I fully expect Google to create an Online Marketplace for widget ad creation - just like audio and video ads.
What does all this craziness mean, and why is it so exciting?
Adwords Widgets and/or Gadgets finally provide pay-per-click advertisers with a viral bag of goodies to play with. With personalized sites such as iGoogle, and customized applications such as Google Desktop leading the way, can the big sites like Facebook.com, MySpace.com, and widget-friendly Windows Vista be so far off?
Possible Applications
Now this is where it gets pretty cool. Apparently, early advertisers have already used the new Adwords gadget placements to add rich viral components to user-customized portals. Fox Entertainment ran ads for the movie “A Mighty Heart”, allowing users to view movie posters, screenshots, biographic information, trailers, etc.
The possibilities are endless, which makes me happy, segue to my next point…
Who’s Policing this, Again?
Let’s face it, a lot of us look at some of the competing ads in our Adwords keyword space and wonder if Google really pays any attention. For goodness sake, there are black-hat PPC software programs out there that can turn on and off display ads depending on when human Google editors patrol for infringement.
Here’s hoping Google requires application reviews for publishers joining this advertising space, because the prerequisite for advertisers to have developers on staff opens a mighty big door for problems such as malware, click fraud (if this thing goes Adsense), and trademark infringement (with mixed media of any kind).
File this under, “wait and see” for the time being. I’m hoping to get further answers in early September, and you better believe my hand is up to be a beta tester.
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