Google officially launched Google Gadgets as an ad unit tonight after about three months of pilot testing. Google’s AdWords platform now supports Google Gadget content in addition to existing text, image, and video offerings. The gadget ads feature an entirely new widget analytics platform for tracking gadget success and interaction, an open caching proxy hosted by Google’s geo-distributed servers, and the introduction of YouTube as a video hosting and transcoding platform free from any Google branding. I previously covered Google’s upcoming advertising widgets in early May.
Advertisers can create Google Gadget content in any size supported by AdWords images. In the example shown above Intel combined a Flash game with tabs displaying images and text with more information on the Intel Centrino Duo mobile processor. Each gadget interaction is recorded according to a set list of actions such as mouse over, tab views, entering a ZIP code, subscribing to a web feed, or initiating audio or visual playback. External links such as a visit to an external website pass through Google trackers for CPC billing.
