For those of you who don’t know the basics of widgets, or the difference between desktop and web widgets, check out this surprisingly unbiased overview post on the Yahoo Widgets blog where they talk about the pros and cons of the four major desktop widget platforms offered by Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Apple.
A key factor when deciding which platforms to consider when building a widget is the overall distribution and the ability to build a single widget for desktop and web use. It’s going to be hard to argue against Vista when thinking in those terms, which will very quickly have greater distribution than all of the others combined on the desktop. And Vista widgets also work on Live.com pages. For companies with enough resources, however, building on all four platforms is relatively straightforward.
The post leaves out all of the widget startups, like Fox-backed SpringWidgets. And more are coming soon. Developers should keep an eye on those platforms as well and build to them if and when they gain traction.
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MuseStorm is a pretty neat service. It’s trying to be a one stop shop for widget distribution (web and desktop), with analytics built in. They can convert any RSS feed into a slick Flash widget.
Very helpful, thanks! We are about to undergo development of a number of “personal media” widgets. Yahoo’s lack of video support is glaring, at least for things such as delivering a media queue to a widget - i.e.:
http://mefeedia.com/user/30921/queue/
Does anyone have any ideas on which platform would work best for these purposes - i.e. delivering a series of videos? Thanks!
“Unbiased”? How can that post can be called unbiased when they left out the first widgets platform from Stardock?
Widgets are very cool and functional, but of course with several limitations like OS and rich media possibilities.
Swoot has solved this problem by looking to another direction. Swoot created a technology to create a browser, this browser is not an application but a web based applic.
This gives the possibility to create anything you can imagine. Every shape, content and functionality is within the range of the designer. Another advantage of this technology is a one time installer ( like flash) and easy to create/design. Everybody can build it!
This is the next step on desktop applications/desktop web content. check it out on http://www.swoot.com!
Yes we (www.swamii.com) are actively building widgets.
Do people think Google’s desktop sidebar can compete when Vista’s sidebar is pre-installed on systems? Obviously Apple/Linux people won’t touch MS Live. It’s a very tough call for web companies at the moment to decide which ‘format’ they should develop for.
Perhaps eventually these companies might make their widgets compatible!?
Guys,
take a step back and really ask yourself - apart from the ,,cool effect” is there any other reason why widgets would appeal to an average user?
This whole thing is so over-hyped that it’s not cool anymore…
At MuseStorm we believe that once Vista adoption spreads, desktop widgets are going to be an important tool for content consumption (see the popularity of Mac Dashboard amongst Mac users).
Putting the hype aside for a minute, widgets are an important phenomenon for the Web and Desktop and our service is there to help publishers offer their end users widgets for both environments.
Aside from Rogier’s business punt and Idealist’s synacism, there are practical business applications for widgets. The áverage’ business user could definitely benefit from widgets. What about the BlueBox Business Widget? BlueBoxWidget.com is essentially a data gateway, allowing users to store data in a centralised location, and then push it out to their target audience, be they staff; customers; suppliers; associates; public in a variety of forms. The system allows one to add unlimited ‘data items’ to their own personal back-office account. Each Data Item is specified as, for example a bar graph, dial, text, link etc. and users can then choose to input the data manually, directly on the http://www.blueboxwidget site, or have the data dynamically fed to the site via XML or ‘direct link API’ methods. The Data Items are then ‘viewed’ as Widget Windowlets on the users’ PC desktop using the BlueBox Desktop Widget or in web- or intranet-pages as page widgets. Users can also ‘export’ their Data Items as live feeds in XML or ATOM format, and these have been adapted to links into standard feed platforms such as Google, Pageflakes, AOL and the like.
Sounds both “cool” and useful to me.
I agree with Widgetfan - we’re increasingly seeing companies build interesting functionality via Widgets. Widgets are still in their infancy, and engineers are still figuring out how to identify and leverage their strengths. They’re still in their “whoa, cool!” phase, replete with branch ideas that will never blossom into anything valuable. But there are some concepts that seem valuable, like MyBlogLog, which is largely Widget-based. Widgets are essentially Ajax-as-a-product, and (as with Ajax) any innovator or entrepreneur should look past the forest of hype and exploratory implementations for the really good ideas.
Although Microsoft is moving in the right direction, I believe the distinction between web and desktop deployed widgets remains: Vista Gadgets only will run on live.com properties. The desktop certainly offers a powerful space for widget management, and there’s no reason desktop widget management has to be confined to desktop widgets. That idea is the driving factor behind the delivery of our Amnesty Generator product - our first step in unifying the web and desktop space by allowing any web widget to run inside of Dashboard. Following’s Vista’s release, we’re looking carefully at their Gadgets implementation to see how we can provide similar services for the Windows side.
i dont understand why nobody talked about the upcoming apollo platform from adobe. it is cross-platform, handles flash (video, audio), is more powerful than widgets.
this is the only place widgets will work; on the desktop.
this is the only place widgets will work; on the desktop.
do you need to check the weather every fifteen seconds?
do you need a calendar or calculator permanently occupying a third of your screen (and a good chunk of your RAM) ?
do you think UI consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds?
then widgets are for you
Its only a matter of time, indeed it might have happened already. That widget will hit the net and start harvesting your personal data and sending it back to hacker hq.
At http://www.yourminis.com we have web widgets that can be used as personalized start page, as individual embeddable widgets and coming soon on the appollo platform as desktop widgets….this will let us get around some of the OS issues as well as give people the ability to use widgets not only for consumption of information but for sharing as well…
Desktop widgets are a powerful marketing tool for companies because they are persistent in the desktop. It’s like a 24-hour advertising tool. If they can make it in such a way that it is not annoying enough for you to remove it, and useful enough for you to keep it in display, then they can generate a good amount of revenue.
Do check out my Vista sidebar gadget here..
http://gallery.live.com/liveIt.....fe&l=1
Right…desktop widgets are a powerful marketing tool…but what about web widgets??? i think http://www.widgipedia.com is the best!
A great business widget is one that interacts with the applications and websites a users relies on every day to do their job. A business widget can’t survive as just eye candy or an interesting toy. It needs to deliver content in the context of what a user is doing users save time and support better decisions.
A truly useful business widget is a very powerful marketing tools.
We built a desktop widget to do this for engineers designing new hardware products. You can see it at http://www.supplyframe.com/gopart
Interesting post indeed. We saw the rise of widgets these years. The remaining question is about how to make money?
NB: i use http://www.widgadget.com to create my widget and publish contents in blogs, social networks, etc.
Microsoft totally coppied Mac with the whole widget or “gadget” thing. Pathetic, get your own ideas you damn PC users.
that’s gadgets on you picture