Tech entrepreneurs have done it again, this time infusing money-making opportunities into Web 2.0 widgets.
My friend, Jim Kukral mentioned that WidgetBucks will have a launch at Tuesday midnight EST. But who can really make money out of this?

Before you rush out and install on your blog, I’d do some due diligence to make sure you’ll earn something decent and that you’ll get paid.

From WidgetBuck’s website: “WidgetBucks comes to you from the folks at Mpire Corporation, the award-winning meta-shopping service. Mpire’s extensive shopping data experience, including its proprietary contextual, analytics and relevancy algorithms, power WidgetBucks. Founded in 2005, Mpire is backed by Ignition Partners and former eBay executive and Pay Pal angel investor Richard Rock.”

What is WidgetBucks?
It’s a javascript-based widget (a small banner-like graphic) that you install on your website or blog, and it uses a comparison shopping type engine to pull relevant listings (the FAQ says “Product listings from 30,000 merchants including trusted leading brands”) and displays it there.

It works on a PayPerClick basis, so it’s similar to adsense, though at $3-6 eCPM ($3-6 per 1,000 visitors), it’s claimed to pay much higher than the industry average of $1-2 eCPM.

Of course compared to affiliate marketing, where I earn about $10-$100 per customer, WidgetBucks and AdSense will seem like chump change.

As has been mentioned before in this blog, Continue reading →