Widgets Everywhere
Posted on January 22, 2008 by Chris DeBrusk
The talk of the day seems to be all about widgets. Widgets on your desktop, widgets on your homepage, widgets on your blog - widgets are going to take over the world. The funny thing is that they actually might if there is every any standardization.
I was checking out NetVibes this morning which is a site I’ve looked at previously and while the concept is pretty interesting, I just cannot get my head around having yet another page I need to check out every morning. There is definitely an advantage to having everything in one place but with tabbed browsers, I don’t find going to multiple sites that onerous anymore.
Yet the concept of being able to encapsulate everything I care about on the net in nice, bite sized chunks that I can organize as I please is really compelling. Now if only everyone playing with widgets would focus on getting it right for the user we might have something worth getting excited about.
The trend here that I think is interesting is a movement away from “web-sites” to small, information rich mini-sites that you can plop down anywhere you please. This has huge implications for branding and distribution of content (and for search actually, and advertising…you get the idea).
Consider a world where there are really no websites to speak of, but everyone shoves out their content in small increments that are very customized to the user’s preference. Interested in the Boston Red Sox but don’t care about all those other teams (ok, I live in Boston…I admit it)? Simple, grab the Boston Red Sox widget from MLB and a similar one from ESPN and drop it on your homepage, your desktop, your phone - wherever you like to satisfy your baseball addiction.
Want to show off your stock picking acumen? Snag a portfolio widget from your favorite financial news source, set it up with all your picks and attach it to your FaceBook page, your blog and again drop it onto the your phone (so you can make sure it is something you want to show off). Basically put it wherever you want (your AppleTV?)
Widgets that give you what you want and follow you where you go - no browser needed. It is a compelling concept and definitely a trend worth watching.
Sphere: Related Content» Filed Under Content Disaggregation
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