I’ve just finished another column for Mobile Media (MM), a subscription-only publication published by Informa. This time it was an analysis of the emergence of ad-enabled widgets and how developers/content owners/brands might monetize these idle-screen mini-applications. Thanks to my esteemed colleague Guillermo Escofet for his worthwhile contribution to the piece.

Weeks before AdMob and JumpTap both broke on the scene with the iPhone App store advertising/monetization schemes, Guillermo and I honed in on the strategies of several vendors to target widgets as the next advertising real estate.Consider Nokia’s big push in this direction. Its Widsets strategy is focused on enabling brands and publishers to insert ads in to the widgets, and it already has Volvo, and conservation group the World Wildlife Fund on board. (MSG reported on this here.)

Likewise, Qualcomm’s Plaza mobile widgets platform includes advertising functionality, enabling operators to place ads directly into specific areas. Finally, Goojet, a start-up coming out of stealth mode, revealed its plans to MSG to create an iTunes for widgets. In this scenario, widgets would be ad-enabled and part of a larger social network that would encourage users to discover, rate, and share cool apps.

To be clear, not everyone is convinced that marketers will buy into the idea of using widgets to deliver the ads. Ilja Laurs, founder of the free mobile download site GetJar, told MM that widgets are typically “extremely simplistic – just a few lines of code.” So building a robust ad system in a widget may “be a very difficult technical task.”

This problem may be the opportunity for on-device portal (ODP) software providers.

SurfKitchen, for example, is positive on the outlook for ad-enabled widgets. It is offering widgets as an enhancement to its ODP platform and has further ad-enabled them to drive revenues (and discovery) for mobile operators and brands. This exclusive interview with Cincinnati Bell Wireless (CBW) – a regional carrier that recently tied up with SurfKitchen to become the ODP provider’s first North American customer – offers some interesting insights into the potential interplay between the idle-screen, widgets, and advertising.

And talk about timing: A recent Yankee Group report (Mobile Widgets: Bringing Web 2.0 to the Third Screen) also deep-dives into the topic, arguing widgets are the answer. They improve the UI, enable customization/personalization, and allow the successful syndication of content. What’s more, they offer a clear path amid a confusion of platforms (Android, iPhone, OpenMoko, JavaFX mobile, and Limo) and a myriad of new and unfamiliar APIs developers have to deal with in J2ME and Symbian.

No wonder vendors and investors are jumping on the widget bandwagon.

The Yankee report offers a valuable overview of the competitive landscape, as well as the companies to watch:

• Handset makers (Nokia)
• Browsers (Novarra, Openwave, Opera)
• ODPs (Action Engine, Qualcomm, SurfKitchen)
• Media companies (Yahoo)

Other ventures that figure big are GetMobio ($8 million in Series A), Plusmo ($4.4 million in Series A), Webwag (Seed funding in October 2007), Widgetbox ($8 million in Series B), WidSets (backed by Nokia), and Zumobi (backed by Microsoft).

The Yankee report – and I agree – argues that widgets offer advertising opportunities in the form of sponsorships, premium listings, and click-to-call. In fact, the report runs through several likely and lucrative scenarios. GetMobio can monetize its Cheap Gas widget with premium listings; OpenTable could pay for reservation referrals through click-to-call; and mobile operators could easily sell more content with less hassle. As Yankee points out: “If a movie studio were to sponsor a movie time widget, it could display a splash page of its latest movie release complete with relevant ringtones and wallpaper. Revenue could be shared among the movie studio, the widget engine, and the operator.”

But it’s not just about monetizing the experience, it’s about giving mobile operators final say over whether content is or is not available in the widget catalog, and the level of integration. (Enabling -or not – the widget framework to be configurable from a soft key or available on the idle screen, for example.)

The combination of widgets and ODPs also provides mobile operators full control over whether to grant the application access to location information or other valuable data operators collect that sit at the core of their competitive advantage.

And let’s not forget the overall positive impact widgets have on the mobile Internet experience.

The Yankee report recounts the example of European operator Orange, and the impact of a storefront ODP created by ODP provider SurfKitchen. The simplified storefront – which displayed cached previews of 10 ringtones, thumbnail previews of 10 wallpapers, and a short text description of three to five games – effectively “increased Orange’s download ARPU by 30 percent during the first 12 months after the platform went live, as well as a 30 percent increase in WAP portal usage.”
My take: Widgets are poised to play a pivotal role in our mobile Web experience (mobilizing and monetizing content/apps.) In the carrier-controlled environment, widgets can be integrated into ODPs as a way to provide a new gateway to the mobile Internet (one-click to content, and an overall better UI) and give operators more control over which widgets it enables – or not. It’s a great combination – and I expect we’ll see loads more operators getting on board – but it’s also a tough balancing act between allowing too much choice and none at all. Hopefully, all that control won’t go to operators’ heads. Remember, widgets are a way to boost off-portal not limit it.

(I’ll have more on this topic soon when SurfKitchen CTO and widget guru Dave Evans swings back in August with his first column examining the impact of widgets on the user experience, data consumption and the mobile operator status quo.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Content Discovery, Location-based services, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Research, On-Device Portals, Personalization, Usability, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.