vFlyer Unveils Business Widgets for Online Sellers

JavaScriptSearch
Wednesday, February 28, 2007; 03:10 AM

vFlyer, a comprehensive classified ad and content creation, management and submission platform, unveiled its commerce widgets series that supercharges sellers’ ads and marketers’ content by enabling them to easily embed dynamic applications into their pages and sites while leveraging vFlyer’s advanced syndication capabilities. A web widget is a piece of dynamic content that can easily be embedded into a web page. Aimed at both consumer and business online sellers (i.e.: real estate agents and auto dealers), vFlyer’s new series of commerce widgets allow online sellers to embed a list of flyers or their entire inventory of products or services for sale on their own websites, blogs or social network sites.

vFlyer’s commerce widgets arm sellers and marketers with a more dynamic way to enliven the presentation, promotion and selling of their goods and services. A point-and-click widget editor lets sellers customize and preview one of many Flash or JavaScript widgets and then generate the necessary HTML code to cut-and-paste them on their personal websites or blogs, social networks (MySpace, Xanga, etc.), eBay as well as numerous other online marketplaces. Example applications of vFlyer’s new series of commerce widgets include:

• Real Estate Listing Widgets - supercharges an agent’s ability to showcase new listings or further market homes for sale in a scrolling gallery that includes summary information or access to more details about the properties.
• Promotion Widget - helps bands advertise an event, sell tickets, provide a tour schedule, pre-sell a soon-to-be-released album, or provide links for fans to get more information about specific albums.
• Job Listing Widget - gives employers an additional channel to promote a number of open positions and job requisitions that they are trying to fill.

"Widgets are an interesting addition to vFlyer's product offerings and a nice way to establish a Web presence that can be distributed on places like Craigslist," said Michael Boland, a senior analyst in The Kelsey Group's Interactive Local Media practice. "For small businesses that already have a Web site, widgets let them take this functionality to their existing sites and have new ways to display products or items for sale. This could catch on well in the real estate and auto verticals in particular."

“Thousands of sellers are already creating professional marketing content with our service, and commerce widgets seemed like a natural extension for us. We can transform the rich content already entered into widgets so that it is far more visually appealing, more interactive and can be easily dropped into blogs, websites and social networks,” said Aaron Sperling, president and CEO of vFlyer. “This is our first major step toward becoming a leading marketing partner for online sellers. We’re thrilled that these latest enhancements will help our users promote their offerings to a greater audience in a far more captivating way.”

New Mashups Deliver Embedded Video Support and Maps

vFlyer has also extended its support to include online videos that can be embedded within classified ads or “virtual flyers.” Flyers can display small, clickable video thumbnails that expand to an embedded version of video clips, which can be hosted on video-sharing sites such as YouTube. vFlyer now also provides new support for Yahoo! Map mashups, enabling sellers to easily drop a graphical map onto their virtual flyer so that buyers can readily find the seller’s business or listing location.