It’s a Wild Widget World!
From my mac dashboard to my Netvibes RSS start page, from my blackberry to my desktop on the office PC, it seems like these widgets are everywhere. Email, Stocks, Calculators, Chat, Cartoons, Sport scores, you name it and there is a widget for it. Now web widgets as a concept have been around for quite some time in rudimentary fashion. Konfabulator was one of the early pioneers in this space.
Over past few years with the Web 2.0 phenomenon, widgets have taken a prominent role in how we consume information on the web today. In the beginning, widgets were very unwieldy desktop applications, which had to be downloaded, configured and required lot of bandwidth. Now with increased broadband penetration and the web 2.0 model most of the early barriers have been lowered. With the success of RSS and other syndication technologies it has become easier for developers to create quick web widgets.
Moreover there has been lot of improvement in enabling such widgets. Many top companies have started enabling ecosystems which allow developers to write widgets and run them in multiple environments. Yahoo, Google and Apple to name a few. Microsoft has even built the widget engine within their new Windows Vista operating system.
With such ecosystems to develop on and with major social networks and media services exposing APIs, widgets have certainly become easy to create and distribute. I have liberally utilized them on this blog.
I am hoping that big companies, media entities and other brands also recognize the value of these widgets. Just as they have gradually started adopting RSS as another medium of distributing information, they have to realize the power of widgets. Not to mention that monetization options on a widget are far greater than on RSS.
For example; media powerhouses CNN and FOX can offer cross-platform news widgets, which users can install on their work laptops. Companies can offer latest product information and other key announcements via widgets. The sky is wide open on this one.
In conclusion, I do believe that widgets are far more user friendly than RSS. RSS is a great enabling technology but its consumption is not always great. With widgets content providers have lot more control on the presentation and are able to monetize using advertisements.
All the enablers are in place, over next year or so we will realize the ubiquity and power of widgets. Let me know your thoughts on the matter and I will respond soon.
