Widgets to share and sell music began appearing as early as 2008. But with the increased focus on direct to fan channels, a widget's ability to spread virally and be updated instantly has led to greater adoption from music marketers. In addition to standalone widget suppliers, both Topspin and ReverbNation, for example, have made widgets a cornerstone of their artist empowerment efforts.
Tunecore's new widget
This week Tunecore added widgets to its artist services portfolio. Each white label Tunecore widget is custom made by the artist at TuneCore.com and features cover art, song titles, Tweets, bio, links to the official band page and links to buy. Fans can sign up by providing their email address and zip code, as well as, spread the widget themselves. Future versions will include band photos, tour dates, videos and lyrics.
A major music sales widget player in Europe, theBizmo, is now also bringing its widgets to the US.
In addition to MP3s, theBizmo widget can help sell ringtones, screensavers, videos, merchandise-on-demand, concert tickets, E-books/PDFs of sheet music, lyrics, and more. A unique feature of theBizmo widget is simultaneous dual downloads to both computer and mobile.
Developed by the same team that built the core engine for the Groove Mobile music delivery service, theBizmo is free of all ads but takes a percentage of sales as high as 30%.
theBizmo promotional trailer
