This is why iGoogle is a fading technology. It's turned into a race to the bottom in terms of cost and quality of gadgets. This is the same thing that happened with apps on the iPhone. Apple has change their app store a bit to help with this problem... but these changes are based on paid apps. iGoogle doesn't have that. Also, the search algorithm they use for finding useful gadgets has significant problems.
Standing out from the crowd? lol. good luck with that. It could happen but the probability is so slim, it's not really worth developing on the platform anymore. You'll have to wait for at least 6 month if not a year or two before you have any significant usage (or ROI) [if ever]. There are gadgets that don't follow this usage curve but they are very few and far between. Google has removed many quality gadgets from their directory. You have a lot of risk of google removing your gadget from the directory making any development time/money completely wasted. Many people have been complaining about this (including myself) and there doesn't seem to be any fixes on the horizon. Apple has this problem too where you have to have a finished product before it's completely rejected by their review team. Here it's worse because so few people know that google removes your gadgets on some algorithmic whim (or maybe they just remove it by hand? dunno). As an example of the issue: Commodities Market. 23k users. The MOST popular commodities gadget out there. Do a search for "commodities" and it doesn't even show up! At one point it was the first gadget on the list (for that search). Rightly so. It's the most popular gadget for commodities. The next closest competitor is 5-7k users? maybe? if that. The directory still lists it as a gadget in my author profile so it's still in there. Just no one can find it. Go figure that one!! I'm not just talking out my ass either. Before google started mucking with the Gadget Author rankings (more than a year ago) I was one of the top 5 developers of iGoogle Gadgets. In fact, my gadgets were so popular that Google asked me to preview the Open Social platform. I went to their offices here and fiddled with it for two days. Not a decent platform. [sarcasm] It's great to see that they've really put it to great use on iGoogle [/sarcasm] IOW, You can try to get your gadget ranked up, or used, or whatever but there is a high probability that you've wasted your time and money on your iGoogle Gadget. Put some effort into it for sure, but be prepared to do a complete write off (which is, in essence, what i've had to do with my gadgets they have delisted). The ROI on a iphone app is much higher (it's still relatively low!). The other mobile platforms are starting to look reasonable too. The funny thing is that iGoogle has the potential to MAKE money by allowing gadget makers to buy placement for their gadgets or on keywords. This is what their adwords is all about... yet they have such a failure of imagination behind this platform that it's mind boggling. (not to mention that everything that happens on their end is nearly completely opaque). Brad On Jan 10, 3:59 am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear iGoogle editors, > > We have created a new iGoogle weather-gadget - > YoWindow.http://www.google.com/ig/directory?url=repkasoft.com%2Fwimo%2Figoogle... > > 1. it's of a high quality compared to the majority of other gadgets > 2. unique - true weather picture - no one does this. > > There are a lot of weather gadgets on iGoogle. > YoWindow certainly beats 50% of them in terms of quality. > > Now YoWindow got lost among the sea of other weather gadgets. > 104 users per day. > > We think that our small gadget deserves an attention from iGoogle > users. > > Do we have any chance to get reviewed by Google editors? > Can we reach Editorial Picks? > > Pavel Repkinhttp://desktop-weather.com On Jan 10, 3:59 am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear iGoogle editors, > > We have created a new iGoogle weather-gadget - > YoWindow.http://www.google.com/ig/directory?url=repkasoft.com%2Fwimo%2Figoogle... > > 1. it's of a high quality compared to the majority of other gadgets > 2. unique - true weather picture - no one does this. > > There are a lot of weather gadgets on iGoogle. > YoWindow certainly beats 50% of them in terms of quality. > > Now YoWindow got lost among the sea of other weather gadgets. > 104 users per day. > > We think that our small gadget deserves an attention from iGoogle > users. > > Do we have any chance to get reviewed by Google editors? > Can we reach Editorial Picks? > > Pavel Repkinhttp://desktop-weather.com
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