I think you misread my point on how brands should approach it. If a brand believes that widgets are the right tool for connecting, they need to work with the experts out there on the creation. That would be people like Slide and Playfish (but eventually is also might be people like Avenue A Razorfish, Digitas or Bridge….even Facebook themselves). But just sticking your brand on whatever widget is out there is not the right thing to do. That’s like the old world of Advergames where brands just stuck there logo on whatever casual game was popular. The best widgets out there (for brands) are ones that reinforce and build a brand’s equity. Maybe there are a few existing games that can do that and in that case, a permanent sponsorship could be the right answer. But a revolving “sponsorship” that is nothing more than a traditional ad buy is doomed from that start and will take the widget industry down just like it did advergames and others before it.

Just my thoughts as the guy looking to build my brand with these new tools and vehicles

I completely agree that widgets and games offer a great opportunity for brands to engage consumers in a far more compelling way than most other types of advertising.

I wouldn’t be so black and white about the sponsorship vs build strategy choice, though. It’s true that by building something you have full control and you can’t be replaced, but you also suffer from a very high risk of not being successful in reaching the right consumer or generating the kind of engagement you were after.

The widget business is incredibly hits driven – look at http://adonomics.com/leaderboard/apps?order=active_users&filter=0 for just how steep the curve is. Engineering a hit is very difficult, and predicting who will end up playing with it is even harder.

We at Playfish have worked in the games industry for a long time and even with 100+ developed and published titles between us we still sometimes get surprised by who is actually playing a specific game. You might think your graphics and mechanics are designed for tweens and still end up having 18-34 males as your core demographic or the other way around.

Today we engage with around 1 million players every day through our titles on Facebook. These players spend nearly 40 minutes on our games each day. The advantage of tapping into these consumers is that you have the benefit of knowing who they are and how they behave already instead of predicting who they might be. And because of the very active feedback and reviews you know they are enjoying the experience.

We are working hard to provide brands with meaningful interactions with these users, which feel rewarding, unique and generate emotion in their own right. Current sponsorship models on widgets are still in their infancy and as companies like ours talk to each other more we should see some very engaging alternatives to taking the risk of trying to build your own widgets which need to become hits and reach the target audience you were after.

I’d be curious to hear about more about other experiences out there.