the Web Chef's e-Bytes

Wacky Widgets Continue Growth

Fortune reports on the extreme valuation that T.Rowe Price and Fidelity have projected in Slide, one of the top widget producers given their recent $50 million, 9.1% stake investment in the firm.  Their 50 million widget users, with many more projected to be on the way, are seen as providing a potential monetization opportunity well beyond the keyword ad results associated with search engine giant Google.  With "engagement marketing" becoming the new mantra on the web, it is felt that what better tool to generate engagement then one where the user elects to interact for play, content acquisition or other purposes.

The article also references RockYou, "Slides" largest competitor. 

In other widget news, The Wall Street Journal references Gigya a widget distributor that recently raised $9.5 million.  In a brief report compiled by Scott Austin of VentureWire, the Journal states "The publisher can track the number of times a widget is installed, where it is placed and how many times it is viewed, among other metrics."

For more on widgets see my article "Widgets - web components for plug, play and pay" in Wisconsin Technology Network. 

Paul Gibler

New Article in Wisconsin Technology Network - Big Brother is Watching

I've written a new article in the ongoing series of Buzz Network articles in Wisconsin Technology Network.  The article "Big Brother is Watching; Privacy Barriers are Falling Down" examines some of the recent government and industry intrusions into consumer privacy along with providing suggestions for ways that businesses can avoid problems with their customer's privacy. 

5 years, 4000 American and thousands of Iraqi deaths

While this is not a political blog, I think it is only fitting that we take a moment to remember the 4,000 American dead, thousands of Iraqis dead, countless soldiers with physical and mental wounds and the consequences of our 5 year misadventure in Iraq. 

Private Beta Launch - SlideRocket, web-based presentations

Tech Crunch reported on the private beta launch of SlideRocket "a presentation app that wants to recreate PowerPoint in the browser and take advantage of the web's sharing and mashup capabilities."  SlideRocket is scheduled to launch this summer. 

I took a look at their online demonstration and capability descriptin to see that they are touting a wide range of features and benefits across a wide range of presentation phases including creation, delivery, managment, analysis and community.  In the demo show they reference the following:

• online libraries for styles and presentation assets
• effects, builds, transitions and animations (including several not available in PowerPoint)
• presentation asset tagging, searching and sorting
• hyperlinks within presentations
• stylizeable charts & graphs
• ability to share presentations online

I've submitted a request to be invited to test out the application and once I have more to report I'll do so at my other blog, PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques.

Paul Gibler

Global Tastes - Chinese Internet Use

The Wall Street Journal reported on official estimates from the China Internet Network Information Center that the number of Chinese Internet users now exceeds that in the United States.  The US is estimated to have 217.1 million users, while the CINIC data shows that China now has 225 million Internet users.  This data is supported by other research from BDA China, Ltd, that found 228.5 million Internet users in China.  While the absolute number is now reportedly higher, as a percentage of the total Chinese poplulation it is only 19.1% according to CINIC.  BDA also reported that only 5% of advertising spending in China is on the Internet.

In other Chinese Internet news, Reuters reported on how Chinese bloggers have for the most part been very nationalistic in their coverage of the unrest in Tibet.  While the Chinese mainstream media has not covered this in much depth apparently the "freedom" in the blogosphere has precluded the shut down of opinions from bloggers.

Web Tidbits - Social Networks

The BBC reports that AOL has acquired Bebo, the third most popular social network in the U.S. for $850 million.  The acquisition will give them a foothold in the emerging market for advertising and marketing through social networks. According to the article Bebo has "40 million viewers worldwide who view an average of 78 pages per day each."

AdRants reports on the beta launch of socialthing!, a Boulder, CO-based company that will aggregate social media sites into a single view.

iMediaConnection author Jere Doyle has an article titled "Find the right social network for your brand" that gives some tips on evaluating demographics and marketing opportunities through social networks.

Guiness Ad Campaign

Guinness - Dot
by sabotage

Web Tidbits - Online Music and Video, Widgets

The Wall Street Journal reported today "Web Tools to find Your Inner DJ" on some of the developments in the online music space.  Among the trends and sites that they referenced were the following:

• Music Streaming Sites - Jango, Pandora (I've been using this one for awhile and love it. )
• Music Search Engines - seeqpod, songza, SkreemR
• Music Social Networking Sites - imeem, last.fm, iLike, MyStrands

Widgets
iMedia Connection has a video clip introducing widgets and the role that they can play as part of your marketing strategies.  You can see the video at: Widget Marketing 101. Also see their article "Do Widgets Spell Doom for Portals?"

For more on widgets see my article "Widgets: Web Components for Plug and Play" at Wisconsin Technology Network.

Online Video
CoolzOr has a posting on a new service called Hey!Spread that allows you to upload your promotional videos to 17 sites saving you the hassle of individual uploads.