Earlier this morning our good buddy, Mike Rundle was talking about widgets, in response to a previous post.
I think the next stage would be to allow users to get the web data they want without even opening their browser. Targeted, practical, functional widgets that give users the dashboard-like information they get from their favorite sites or RSS aggregators.
Funny, he brought that up. This morning, my debut column for Business 2.0, Suddenly everything’s coming up widgets, went live on their website. That’s precisely what I am talking about and talk about startups like PostApp (which has changed its name to Widgetbox), Mashery and Netvibes.
Even Nokia has gotten into the action with Widsets. There are some companies that I could not include in the column, such as Snipperoo, but then that’s what this space is for. My current favorite widget: MeeboMe.
Hi Om
Susan Mernit had a great post on this – http://blog.nooked.com/archives/2006/06/widgety_goodnes.htm
It followed up from a post i did on “widget marketing” – http://blog.nooked.com/archives/2006/06/widget_marketin.htm
Steve preferred to call it “picture in picture” – http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/05/pictureinpict.html
Widgets present a great opportunity to bring RSS, microformats, etc to a much larget market.
Talk Soon
Fergus
I have been telling everyone who will listen that widgets would be a killer app on mobile phones, specifially Nokia phones. Widsets by Nokia is not what I was thinking though its a bit rubbish from a developer point of view IMHO.
I was thinking each widget would appear to be a real application on the phone and would be made with xhtml, css and JS with access to apis on the phone like how Dashboard in OS X can. Nokia has the Webcore and Javacore technologies they need to make it work they just seem so preoccupied with adding DRM to S60 v3.
hey john,
looks like someone started to listen to you, though as most big companies, they are slow in getting on the bandwagon. i think very soon we could expect them to be real widgets, as your describe them. lets pray…eh!
Dear Om, I read your column on Business 2.0 and I agree with you in everything. Widgets are the future of the web.
Funny, this is the opposite of the direction I personally like things. I like to get as much information as I can WITHOUT leaving my browser. Web apps such as GMail, Writely, and Bloglines allow me to spend a lot of time within a single app.
Om, I didn’t know Mashery, your link lands to a single page.
On Digg I read about Webwag.com: http://digg.com/technews/WebwagNewPersonalizedStart_Page
Did you know them you guys ?
Om, aren’t you describing… Pointcast?
(Anybody remember Pointcast?)
And just so you have the link http://snipperoo.com
Thanks,
Ivan
what is the business model at the end of the day for the meebo widget? integrate targeted advertising? what stops google, yahoo, and others from providing the same meebo like widget? It’s a great tool, but how will they make $ from it?
Will it become “a widget world”, probably a little too early to tell. It’s never been clear that the web browser is the natural platform for all of our desktop services, including search. If search DOES move off of the browser, it may make things difficult for Google, Yahoo! etc. to deliver ads. Does this put their business model at risk?
Scott