Widgets "extremely exciting prospect" for advertisers

29th November 2007

The introduction of widget applications has opened up new forms of advertising, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Widgets are branded tools which allow social network users to download new applications to their profile pages, explained the IAB, suggesting that businesses can use them to target consumers.

Amy Kean, press officer for the association, claimed that the applications are cost-effective and easy to implement and that as long as companies remember to keep them functional and entertaining, they can be an extremely successful marketing tool.

"Widgets are user-initiated and are therefore a great way to reach your target audience on their terms, being entirely permission-based," she said.

"This makes them an extremely exciting prospect for advertisers."

Digital market analysts comScore reports that people in the UK use the social networking sites more than anywhere else in Europe, spending an average of 5.8 hours a month on pages such as Facebook.