Paramount to distribute new Indiana Jones trailer via widget

Some time this week Paramount Pictures will release a widget tied to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Much like the studio did for the Cloverfield widget there’s also a contest tied to the widget. The two publishers who distribute the most widgets themselves will win trips to the movie’s premiere and get the chance to act as interviewers on the red carpet, footage of which will streamed through the widget after the event.

The widget will also be used for distribution of the second Indiana Jones 4 trailer, though the release date for that has yet to be announced. Which is kind of big news.

Clearspring is creating the widget, the same company that did so for Cloverfield. Clearspring is also the company behind a number of the other widgets studios have created. That’s partly, as one person states in the article, because they’re able to provide metrics on the widget’s reach and gauge its effectiveness.

The one thing I’ll take issue with that’s said in that article is that widgets are “digital word-of-mouth.” I don’t think that’s quite accurate. Widgets add value to a blog or other site but aren’t really part of the word-of-mouth in the same sense that being mentioned in what someone writes is. It’s kind of the difference between advertising and public relations. As I’ve stated before, widgets are much more akin to ads in that they’re separate from the editorial content.

But widgets are a great way to turn a ton of blogs into a defacto distribution network and that’s exactly what Paramount is doing here, which is good for everyone involved.