Wednesday, May 20, 2009

How to Lose a Widget in 10 Seconds

I recently found that Adweek has a cool widget that shows a new ad every day! I immediately loved the idea and I wanted to add it to my blog and my google home page to indulge my ad nerdiness. However, I quickly found that I couldn’t resize the widget, and it’s very, very big. I couldn’t fit it in the right hand column of this blog and it dwarfed the other widgets on my google home page. I’m not fluent in html, but I am able to work with youtube’s embedding code to make the videos just the right size for what I'm doing; and that is why I like to use youtube.

Conversely, because the Adweek widget lacked flexibility I couldn’t use it (I should note, maybe it's possible but I don't know how - if it is I'd be interested to learn). Now I don’t have a cool widget and Adweek doesn’t get to advertise to me and my readers every day - even though it's something that we both want. I think this is a good example of a great social media idea gone just a little wrong - it's off, I think, because it doesn't take full advantage of the environment it exists in or the full needs of its users. Social media users (like myself) crave flexibility and the ability to customize. You just don't get me Adweek.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Surely the internet can provide you with ads to make up for this loss.

Shoo, that's where you and I are different. I find ads interesting, but I draw the line at posting them on my igoogle page. That's practically my only sanctuary from the world of advertising.

Jason said...

Point taken; but this widget was just an example. What if there was a giant, inflexible web comic app that you couldn't put on igoogle or your blog...? that would be annoying, especially if it was a great widget. My point is that flexibility and user oriented design is key with new media stuff.