IMG00115Widget ninjas and influential minds from all over the world converged on the New York Mariott for a two day symposium on the most effective form of social marketing. They discussed the future of what some believe will be a 36 billion dollar yearly industry.

Marketing media gurus like Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research and Ivan Pope (the “father” of the modern widget) also spoke about other topics, such as long term strategy and setting realistic campaign goals. Key topics included widget standards, cross domain functionality and the value of open social to name just a few.

Jodi McDermott of Clearspring addressed a crowd of expert online marketing professionals about web analytics and how Clearspring is forging new ground, making it easier than ever before to deploy a thoughtful, measurable widget strategy. Jodi also pointed out a simple but effective point. “Keep the end in mind” she says. Don’t ever start a campaign without having a clearly defined set of achievable goals.

Linda Boland of ComScore gave her audience her professional insight on tracking widgets in the wild and effectively portrayed a deep insight into the life of a widget once it is released correctly. Linda gave us a high level view of widget migratory pasterns that go “viral” and shared her insight of the viral loop.

IMG00133Notable companies like Clearspring, MuseStorm, Sproutbuilder, MindCandy, Nokia, Motorola, Plusmo, Newsgator, Platform-A, Mixercast, Splashcast and Perfspot spoke in open forum discussions and private meetings about the future of online and mobile marketing.

A concentrated group of companies that are leading the charge against static banners and stale advertising tactics gathered to talk about the widget; a small thing that is changing the advertising world as we know it. Outside the box engineers and creative thinkers like Khris Loux and Chris Saad enlightened us to the tomorrow of data portability and Open Standards. Patrick Sexton of SEOish who came to the second day admittedly hung over and still delivered a presentation that rocked the foundations of what we thought the rules were. Patrick taught us new ways to enhance our SEO strategy. He also reminded us of an important point that I feel should be mentioned here. Brands: take controll of the conversation or you will have others doing it for you. Take a stance with your brand and continue the conversation in social media on your own terms with atainable goals and the appropriate degree of prudence. Don’t let your affiliate marketers define your brand for you.

Who knows what the future of online marketing will be or the eventual outcome of the social media frenzy? The pioneers and engineers of rich and engaging advertising online and the early widget brand adopters have an idea. The widget will inextricably change every experience we have online.

PerfSpot is happy to embrace the future of the web and it was a pleasure to meet the best and brightest artists of the code and widget. Thanks to all that participated. We look forward to continuing to socialize, discover and create with you!