eday 2007: Lawrence Coburn Widgets

Slide 1: Widget Strategy and Execution Lawrence Coburn Founder, RateItAll Author, Sexy Widget Verizon Wireless Confidential

Slide 2: Agenda  Widgets: A Brief Timeline  The Business Case for Widgets  Distributed Business Strategy: The Four Pillars  Widget Market Sizing  Building Widgets: 5 Principles  Widget Distribution  Widget Monetization  Widgets and SEO  Tools and Resources e.day 2007 2

Slide 3: Widget Timeline Google Gadgets Ventures 2007 Named Year of the Photobucket Widget Acquired Social Media NBA Clearspring .com Launches Serves 3Bth Launches Google Widgets Gadgets Widget Launches First widget Bay Facebook Facebook MyBlogLog appears on YouTube App Fund Widgetbox Platform Acquired MySpace Acquired Funded Launches MyBlogLog YouTube Comscore Sexy MySpace Hits 1M Launches Begins Widget Blocks Widget Widget Tracking Launches Photobucket Impressions Widgets 9/06 1/07 4/07 6/07 11/05 6/06 12/06 5/07 7/07 12/05 10/06 e.day 2007 3

Slide 4: A Business Case for Widgets Conclusion: You Need to Deliver Your Web Service to Consumers where THEY are e.day 2007 4

Slide 5: Why Widgets?  Proven method for getting your web service to go viral  It’s another distribution channel  Gives your users the tools to promote your business  Increasingly difficult to build critical mass for a destination site  Organic back links  If you have a Web site, you should have a widget strategy e.day 2007 5

Slide 6: The Four Pillars of a Distributed Web Strategy  Widgets  Examples: Photobucket, MyBlogLog  Toolbars / Extensions  Examples: Google, StumbleUpon, Adaptive Blue  Facebook Apps  Examples: iLike, RockYou, HotOrNot  API  Examples: Yahoo! Maps e.day 2007 6

Slide 7: Widget Market Sizing  15M Active Blogs (Technorati)  30M+ Active Facebook Profiles  75% have added at least one App  70M+ MySpace Profiles  239M Widgets Used in August (San Francisco Chronicle / Comscore) e.day 2007 7

Slide 8: Building Widgets: Things to Consider  Content / Experience  How compelling is your widget? What’s in it for the publisher?  Customization  One style will not fit all when it comes to profiles and blogs  Branding  What if YouTube hadn’t branded their video player?  Accessibility  Targeting a blog’s sidebar? Make sure it works in a blog sidebar.  Sharing  Remove all obstacles to a widget’s propagation e.day 2007 8

Slide 9: Widget Distribution  “In the Wild” / Widget to Widget  Don’t Put Obstacles  Grab embed code from widget  One click add (Check out Clearspring, Widgetbox, Gigya!!)  Early adopter blogs critical  Destination Site  Widget Galleries  Widgetbox  Widgipedia  Snipperoo  Cross promotion (RockYou, Social Media)  Your Own Blog  Brute Force  BizDev e.day 2007 9

Slide 10: Widget Monetization – Hub & Spoke  Hub & Spoke Model  Widget Hosts Get:  Functionality  Content  Traffic  Widget Publisher Gets:  Leads  Content  Organic, Inbound Links  Monetization happens at home base via existing ads / affiliates / subscriptions / etc. e.day 2007 10

Slide 11: Widget Monetization – Affiliates / Ads / Sponsorships Widget footprint is leveraged to serve ads / affiliate links. Challenges:  MySpace doesn’t allow ads  Google AdSense doesn’t allow you to insert add code in widgets  Widget real estate is precious  Low click through e.day 2007 11

Slide 12: Widgets and SEO  Widgets provide an unmatched opportunity to generate large numbers of organic, targeted, one way, inbound links  Link must be crawlable HTML  Experiment with your anchor text  Don’t forget about deep links e.day 2007 12

Slide 13: Resources Service Providers Blogs  Gigya (distribution)  SexyWidget.com  Clearspring (distribution, analytics)  Widgify.com  Widgetbox (distribution,  Blog.snipperoo.com analytics)  Snipperoo (distribution,  Stickiwidgets.com monetization)  Widgetslab.com  Musestorm (distribution, analytics)  Social Media (distribution, monetization) e.day 2007 13

Slide 14: Lawrence Coburn Founder, RateItAll Author, SexyWidget.com lawrence@rateitall.com rateitall.com/widgets Verizon Wireless Confidential