In the center of
GwenStefani.com is an RSS-injected calendar of the pop star's
concert tour, which fans can copy to their own Web pages. The
startup behind these viral marketing widgets thinks your company can
rally its own fan base in the same way.
For the past year, Attendio
has been distributing widgets like the one on GwenStefani.com to
concert goers and sports fans. On Oct. 15, Attendio will relaunch
itself as
Gydget.com and aim its technology more directly at businesses.
Gydget.com's target market will continue to be entertainers, sports
teams, and their promoters, but CEO Gerardo Capiel says nonprofits,
retailers, and media companies are all potential users, too. "It
lets you turn your customers into a marketing channel for you," says
Capiel.
The new Gydget.com will serve as an online platform where
businesses can create widgets, then distribute them to consumers
from their own Web sites. In addition to providing the widget-making
capability, Gydget.com will provide analytical tools to track widget
distribution and click throughs.
Attendio's widgets are intended for repurposing on social
networks like Facebook and MySpace and on personalized iGoogle
pages. That's still the case with Gydget.com, though PC and Mac
widgets are on the company's roadmap. Facebook has its own tools for
writing widgets. By comparison, Gydget.com's widgets--the company's
calling them gydgets--can be created once, then used across
different social networks. They're based on the Ruby on Rails
programming language and framework. Each widget is an RSS-fed applet
capable of displaying a calendar of events, news, and video.
How will Gydget.com make a business of widgets? For small
companies, the gydgets will carry a small advertisement at the
bottom of the frame, while video content pulled in from YouTube
might carry ads, too. When used by entertainment companies,
transaction fees could be associated with ticket sales that
originate at the widget. For enterprise accounts, a licensing fee
may be required.