Attention, Please

Brandweek, Jan 17, 2000 by Susan Kuchinskas

Tiny apps go after eyeballs.

Just when you thought there was no more ad real estate to be found, those canny technical types have scrounged up some new space. Following the lead of Real Networks, whose branded "jukeboxes" deliver steady streams of music and ads, a spate of new companies are angling for a place on the desktop for their free Web applications.

These desktop assistants come in the form of toolbars or little windows that sit on the computer screen, offering one-click access to files or Web sites. Most promise a different way to find and organize one's Web experience. Some even let users create their own personal portals.

These apps are free to the user, although most companies require that users fill out a short profile form that enables makers to target advertising. At the same time, they provide publishers and marketers with users' "desktop attention," a phrase coined by Francis Costello, president of EntryPoint, one of the first companies in the newest e-gadget race. With any luck, the thinking goes, a person composing a memo in a word processing program will let her glance slide away from the document as she ponders the proper phrasing, sucking her into the ad on her customized toolbar for, say, E-Stamp or NordstromShoes.com.

While these latest e-gadgets have their critics--some see them as a novelty that will quickly lose their luster--boosters claim there are advantages for advertisers and users alike. For instance, it could be a way for advertisers to wrest power away from the portals. (Placements on Internet launch pad sites are expensive, and frequently require years-long commitments for top placement.) And when designed well, they may free users from the constraints of browsing.

The advertising component of these desktop assistants works in a variety of ways. Some show ads in a little window within the applications' interfaces; these ads may be cached on the user's hard drive, so they can show up whether or not the user is online. Others deliver ads from their own or third-party servers, while some depend on paid placements on menus for revenue.

Ads usually are targeted using a combination of the "five basic questions"--age, gender, ZIP code, connection speed and e-mail address (asked for when the user signs up)--and contextual information, or what the user is doing when utilizing the app.

USE ME, PLEASE!

The first goal, of course, is getting users to download these freebies. Different strategies are used for initial distribution; some work directly with computer manufacturers, for instance, or make co-branded versions and let content partners distribute them. The desktop is getting undeniably cluttered, what with all those AOL Instant Messenger windows, to say nothing of the icons computer manufacturers have taken to sprinkling across the field of vision. And gaining critical mass is the make or break for these products, says Michele Slack, an analyst in the Online Advertising Group at Jupiter Communications, New York.

"If there are not enough consumers interested in the offer, it doesn't matter how wonderful the quality of those consumers is," she says. "Reach is critical for these companies to even have any interest from advertisers." Slack pegs that critical mass at "tens of thousands."

IWare, based in Scotts Valley, Calif.--and, like most of these companies, founded last summer--lets users mix and match. Its app sits within the Windows taskbar. Users can drag anything they want into the taskbar: icons for a Word document, Web pages and applications can co-exist there, ready for one-click access. IWare starts with five buttons. The iShop and iChoose buttons open menus leading to advertiser-paid-for Web links. Search, Help and Customize buttons do what one would expect. As people use the application, iWare keeps track, building a profile. IWare estimates it will have 45 to 55 hours per month per user of ad time to sell, something CEO Tim Glass calls "the dream of all marketers."

HEFTY HYBRID

ELiberation.com Corp. is going all out to get users for its ePilot application. EPilot, launched Dec. 7, combines the greed factor of multilevel marketing, the pay-for-attention model of Cybergold, the bid for search results placement of goto.com and a Yahoo!-style directory. EPilot waits on the desktop, looking like a button until it's clicked, at which time it opens the first in a series of standard cascading menus.

"Think of it as a very powerful favorites folder with added functionality," explains Heath Clarke, president of eLiberation.com.

Perhaps its biggest lure is that users can earn cash by using the application. Advertisers pay the Irvine, Calif.-based company to place text links to their Web sites within categorized submenus in ePilot; how much they'll pay users per click is listed right there. For example, if a user were looking for information on life insurance she could drill down from the category Net Guide through Business to Insurance, then finally to Life, where she has the choice of choosing from the nine listed sites that pay, such as Survivorship Life (26 cents per click-through) or scrolling down to links that aren't paid placements, and therefore pay the user nothing.