

Boring website? Step on up to the Heyzap (YC W09) Social Games Bar - immad
http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/04/20/web-sites-can-step-on-up-to-the-heyzap-social-games-bar/

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vtail
What a strange idea! "My website is boring, so I'll add something to
_distract_ people from my content to make it less so?" Seriously?

How is it different from just opening a game in another browser window, and
why would users keep coming to my website to play the game instead of some
centralized location?

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pstevensza
Bit of a head scratcher for content owners as you point out. It would however
make a nice bullet point for considering a web site: if you're considering
HeyZap, you have a problem.

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pavel_lishin
Unless you're running a casual forum, in which case it could be another thing
for people to discuss and compete about.

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pstevensza
Valid point.

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jakarta
Online newspapers/blogs should definitely consider a feature like this. It
could be really helpful in getting users to visit more often if they start
designing their time around reading a few articles and then playing games for
a bit.

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sorbus
"So the bar, which sits at the bottom of a website, is a new, less intrusive
option to use Heyzap."

Arguably so. However, I've always found bars like that to be much more
intrusive than a little widget towards the side of a website - one can't just
scroll past them, and my eye is drawn towards things which stay the same as I
scroll but which aren't normally there - which is really irritating.

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axod
I think it's cool to have a widget that you can embed within your website,
just like you embed a youtube video... but it looks like with heyzap, when
they play a game, it lightboxes and obscures your website - they may as well
have been redirected to heyzap to play it.

Do heyzap do a small game widget that sits within the page?

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immad
Yes we do in various sizes:

<http://www.heyzap.com/publishers/get_started>

The lighbox only happens when the user is in the middle of the game, which we
thought was reasonable to avoid them clicking out by mistake and ruining the
game. Happy to hear other alternatives.

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axod
So as soon as they click "Play", it opens a lightbox and hides the rest of the
site. Is there any option to just have the game play within the widget area? I
think it'd make for some more seamless integrations into existing sites.

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immad
The bigger widget plays within the widget area (the 650px+ widgets).

Game need certain real estate unfortunately.

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axod
Ah ok, hadn't tried that size. Thanks for clarifying.

