I read some articles here and here. They're very interesting and I don't want to put myself in a critical perspective to them. I’d rather extend the issue and put the question into other perspective(s).

Basically, the issue is about brand building and long term value in the digital marketing era. The risks that may occur is that brands are looking for short term solutions that still, isn't going to sell the product or service. Again, I’m not going to relate to these texts, they have some good points. But the question is how to build an authentic brand in today’s fragmented world of advertising and (media) consumption?  

Looking at the various applications that we're likely to see (lots) more of; I think they're necessary. The majority of them aren’t going to produce long term values for your brand. But well crafted they could just do that, I think it’s a matter of finding the right projects that could support your brand. It’s also about the mix of your marcom’s; soon the web is going to be the hub for your communications, of which the various applications needs to be part of. Till then I’ll believe that the short term, and occasionally “meaningless” widgets are going to be refined and we need some forward thinking and strategies to make them fit into the overall strategies.  

Tags: widget, application, marketing, brand building, value, yooba, adweek,