WIDGNET: Advertising.com’s Facebook Play
As Brook pointed out earlier today, some affiliate marketers are working hard to wrap their head around the marketing possibilities that Facebook and social networks present. There’s good reason for this as people are spending more time on social networks as part of their daily screen time.
Now it looks like the ad networks are leaping into Facebook as well. Leveraging their partnerships with large brands and the lead generation crowd, Advertising.com has launched a new Facebook application program called WIDGNET. According to the press release:
Advertising.com today announced the launch of its new WIDGNET services program, enabling developers of Facebook applications and similar tools to join the company’s massive ad network and earn advertising revenue from their creations.
By incorporating banner advertisements served by Advertising.com into the application format, the WIDGNET program will provide developers a lucrative and easy way monetize their creations. Advertisers, in turn, will have a continual stream of fresh, creative opportunities to target consumers in a social network environment.
Through
the WIDGNET program, creators of these types of applications will gain
access to Advertising.com’s vast advertiser base. Publishers range from
independent developers to established companies such as RockYou,
Scrabulous and Fotoflexer whose customizable widgets include photo
slideshows, photo and image editing, glitter text, voicemail
accessories and games.
Joel Fisher, Advertising.com’s Initiative Lead for New Product Development, added more in a follow up email request I sent over regarding Advertising.com’s long term play in the widget and social networking space:
Through WIDGNET, Advertising.com can now help widget developers monetize their widgets and create new revenue streams. In addition, Advertising.com’s network can be utilized as a powerful and effective widget distribution channel. Ultimately, this creates exciting new channels, creative sizes, and opportunities for advertisers to leverage.
To date, no company has yet to blaze the trail of responsible and sustainable monetization inside of Facebook or any of the social networks (certainly not Facebook themselves with their Beacon debacle). So, it will be interesting to see whether or not Facebook application developers will go the route of traditional affiliates and use something like WIDGNET.
Joel puts the focus on advertiser opportunities in his reply. In order to make this work, I think the networks (and affiliates at large) will have to also consider the opportunities for the users who make-or-break these platforms. However, it is good to see a major network braving the social waters.
