WidgetBucks MediaWeek: Advertisers Embracing Widgets

MediaWeek's Digital Download reports on widget's bright future, which was heavily bandied about at this week's Media Summit in New York. Writer Mike Shields points out that "advertisers and media companies are beginning to embrace the power of widgets."

One source within Shields' piece predicts online ad networks will serve largely as widget distribution platforms. Widgetbucks feel this prediction has no merit...the future is already here! In the opinion of WidgetBucks, we're living it. Our ad widget network is firmly planted between innovative widget makers (i.e. RockYou, Slide), which are trying to figure out how to make money, and online advertising networks, such as ValueClick, Tribal Fusion and countless others, where innovation is spotty.

WidgetBucks already provides a combination of built-in business model (shopping widgets now, more to come soon), proprietary technology (i.e. YieldSense, MerchSense, and mass distribution (3 billion impression mark is quickly approaching). And as a result, we're one of the fastest growing networks today.

Read the rest of the MediaWeek piece here.

WidgetBucks Updates International CPM Country List

WidgetBucks Updates International CPM Country List

Over the past few weeks, WidgetBucks' international advertisers have been concerned about traffic originating in certain countries. Even with fraud-protection, advertisers can deem traffic from certain regions non-valuable. As such, when advertisers no longer wish to pay for traffic to certain regions, WidgetBucks has to adapt and no longer offer traffic monetization to those regions.

Effective immediately, WidgetBucks is shortening the list of countries that pay on a CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) basis, meaning only traffic from the list of countries below will earn CPM revenue. Site visitors originating from countries not on the list will result in zero payout. Revenue earned through visitors from countries no longer on the list will still be paid through today, March 7.

If a WidgetBucks ad widget is placed on a site that is visited by a user in a non-paying country, that user will not see any ad content. And this does not involve or impact the recent roll-out of the "hybrid" widgets, which include a CPM display ad for U.S. and Canada traffic.

List of countries whose traffic continues to pay on a CPM basis:

• Australia (AU)
• Austria (AT)
• Belgium (BE)
• Denmark (DK)
• France (FR)
• Germany (DE)
• India (IN)
• Ireland (IE)
• Italy (IT)
• Netherlands (NL)
• New Zealand (NZ)
• Portugal (PT)
• Puerto Rico (PR)
• Singapore (SG)
• South Africa (ZA)
• Spain (ES)
• Switzerland (CH)
• United Arab Emirates (AE)
• United Kingdom (GB)

Over time, additional countries may return to the "approved" list, but only after ad partners become increasingly comfortable with the traffic trends and are willing to pay for ad content in those regions.