Criteo - Widgets and Web2.U

Criteo has introduced a blog widget that displays links to other blogs. The links are based upon reader affinity for related blogs. The widget displays the top 10 links on each blog and these links are ‘unique’ for each blog.

One problem with the Criteo widget is that the links are all generated via a java script call to Criteo. Much like Google Adsense, none of the blogs receive any linking benefit. The only winner is of course, Criteo. We’ll consider the one visitor who actually clicked on a link to this blog as noise, given the .02% click through rate.

What good does it do to send a reader away to a related blog when one doesn’t derive the benefit from the links themselves. And, to add insult to injury in this case, would you believe it!? Somehow, the Criteo blog is one of the links that appears on the widget. What do you think the chances are that since it’s a Criteo widget, there’s a strong ‘affinity‘ with Criteo for all sites using the widget.

I have to say that it’s greatly disappointing to see how Web2.0 is surely moving towards a model of exploitation rather than cooperation. As I’ve described previously in Why Web2.0 Must Go, and Structured Blogging: Exploitation?, the web ought to promote cooperation and personalization rather than collectivism and exploitation.

Now that I know which blogs Criteo recommends as related to Plexav.com, I am creating permanent links to those blogs right here in this post:

• Ben Yoskovitz’s Instigator Blog - link removed
• Widgetslab - link removed
• Somewhat Frank- link removed
• Geeks are Sexy (GAS) - link removed
• Manoj Ranaweera’s Blog - link removed

Given the low click through rate, better we simply link to each other through a permanent blogroll, rather than the Criteo widget. In fact, I’ve already added each to my own links widget. I’ll be pulling the Criteo widget, but I’d first like to see if we have a nice way of locating contextually related blogs and sites for linking purposes. Better the bloggers profit through a cooperative effort, rather than a single company such as this.