Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Widgetbox business model is not good for devs

Play Random Game

I just added a new widget to Widgetbox and noticed something I'm actually not happy with:

A widgets developer HAS to pay to avoid Widgetbox hijack his/her widget and inject ads...

What?

To be honest, I don't remember if this "feature" was already there in February when I added my first Flex Widget (Newest Games) but I today when my widget Play Random Game was approved I got an email encouraging me to upgrade to Pro and after checking, this is one of the benefits:

- No ads on widgets you develop or install

I just don't get it!
- We create content for them for free
- They use our content for Marketing adding a button with a link back to Widgetbox (which is fair as they are distributing the widgets)
- They add ugly ads covering our widgets without our approval
- They monetize with these ads without any revenue share option for us devs
- We MUST pay if we don't want to see the ads (???)

I think the idea of charging users if they don't want to see the "get widget" button is good but adding ads without sharing revenue with the devs and on top of that asking devs for money so the ads are not shown IS JUST PLAIN WRONG!

Very bad Widgetbox, very very bad. I wonder how much they make from widgets like my Flash Date Calendar which gets 50k+ views a day?

This makes me think about moving my widgets with other distributors...

salut!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I KNOW and its so stupid! Have all the people gone crazy and Inhumaine just cause the gov. ruined our Econemy!? I've been using widgetbox to get alot of my widgets for my blog and it sucks!And the thing about going pro for widgetbox is by going pro you are removing the ads from the widgets YOU put on your blogs and stuff, but the widgets you put on widgetbox still have ads for other people who want to use your widgets, so the buisness is still profitable even if all the widget-makers go pro. But at least the ads arent as inhumaine as the ones I find sent to my email postlinks for my fansites and stuff for my blogs (if you really REALLY insist on seeing the most inhumain ads in the universe go to http://bigboxofs--t.blogspot.com/ BUT GO AT YOUR OWN RISK THEY ARE THE MOST INAPPROPRATE AND INSULTING ADS IN THE UNIVERSE, THATS WHY I ONLY HAVE ONE POST ON THE COVER)

Sorry that was kinda long and rambleie

Amy
one of the authors of
http://cheeseloverandarmstrong.blogspot.com/