Google Launches Widget Ads

Red Herring - September 19, 2007 –

Google on Wednesday unveiled a new graphic ad format that will allow advertisers to create interactive ads within widgets that can be spread virally across the Internet.

The Internet giant’s new technology can be used to create a variety of ads that can be distributed across Google’s web sites, as well as a network of Google-affiliated sites.

Google has already signed up a group of large advertisers to create their own “gadgets,” the company’s term for widgets. The gadgets can include video, images, constantly updated data feeds, and mini versions of entire web sites.

Some of the features are similar to the dynamic interactive ads that Google has recently released on YouTube videos. (See YouTube's New Video-Ad Standard.)

Google’s new ads will help the company tap into the increasingly viral manner in which audio, video and data content is being distributed across the Internet. The growing use of RSS feeds and widgets—which enable Internet users to embed small content windows on third-party pages—means that companies no longer exclusively control the content that appears on their websites.

This shift has created problems—and new opportunities—for advertisers and websites. Observers have speculated on how social networks MySpace and Facebook would generate revenues from their widget-cluttered personal profile pages.

Photobucket in April got under MySpace’s skin—before MySpace bought it—when the photo-sharing company released a Spiderman ad inside a MySpace widget.

On the other hand, advertising and web services companies like NewsGator, AdMission and ShopLocal have been developing advertising-supported widgets for clients.