...Widgets, Blogs, Websites, Oh My!

The internet is a highly-interconnected animal, and the widget presents a sensible distribution tool. But despite a blitz of widget-mania and widget-focused startups, online marketing executives are keeping some perspective. "It's the new black for five minutes," joked Mark Ghuneim, chief executive of WiredSet, during a discussion at the Digital Music Forum in lower Manhattan on Wednesday. "There is no one thing to use," Ghuneim continued. "It makes sense to embrace many strategies and pockets."

The puts the widget into context, though Ghuneim and others are tapping the widget to achieve some needed scale over the massive internet. In a chit-chat Tuesday, iLike chief executive Ali Partovi demonstrated the total scalability and simplicity that distributed widgets and portable code are offering participating artists. And iLike widgets will soon invade MySpace artist pages, according to Partovi.

Others are using the widget and RSS feeds to greatly expand the reach of their sites. "We've 'widgetized' as many aspects of the site as we can," explained Peter Rojas, chief executive and cofounder of ad-supported music blog RCRD LBL. "You don't have to visit the site every day," the blog-savvy executive explained. "We're addressing users on their terms."

But a host of other tools exist, and savvy marketers are exercising a broader portfolio of options. That includes the ultra-powerful social networking space, a platform that is currently teaming with fresh entrants. But users shift allegiances quickly, and that makes it difficult to invest serious resources into one network - at least outside heavy-hitters like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, and iLike.

Still, executives seemed less concerned with consumer fatigue for networks, and more interested in the emergence of more specialized sites tailored towards niche audiences. That spells an increasingly dispersed landscape, and an opportunity to discover more targeted and responsive audiences. "I wouldn't recommend anyone spending a small budget on any one thing," advised Doug Perlson, chief executive of TargetSpot.

Report by publisher Paul Resnikoff in New York.

Permalink: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/022708widgets

Related article (registration required):

"iLike Pokes Into MySpace Turf, Developments Await," February 26, 2008
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/022608ilike

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