The second part in our ongoing Widgets 101 series, a look at the birth of widgets. No diagrams or awkward videos required…
WHERE DO WIDGETS COME FROM?
It depends. Desktop widgets started it all, and they are generally built by software companies. Web widgets are viral and pop up all over.
Since they are simply a piece of code (though some are more complicated than others) anyone can create one. They are easily shared and distributed—just cut and paste the code into your webpage. But even that is getting easier thanks to companies like Gigya. Their new tool, Wildfire, will allow widget producers to directly embed their widgets into the bigger social networks (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, Xanga, Blogger and Tagworld are currently supported).
In terms of the big widget platforms, here are some good names to know:
Konfabulator: the first widget “engine” (check out their comic history), it is an application you can download to both Mac and PC with pre-made set of widgets and more available for download. Bought by Yahoo! and now the basis of Yahoo! Widgets…
Yahoo! Widgets 4: the company’s newest platform for web-enabled mini apps on the desktop, available for Windows and Mac OS X. Similar to Mac Dashboard and Vista Sidebar with over 2,400 widgets you can choose from. It also allows users to easily create and submit their own widgets.
Mac Dashboard: Macs come with a dashboard full of built-in desktop widgets. As more widgets come out that mimic Apple’s desktop format and function, it’s become more apparent that they set the standard.
Vista Sidebar: Windows Vista has made “gadgets” (read: widgets) a cornerstone with its Sidebar technology. They recently unveiled a Disney widget on PCs in China. More on that in part 3…
Google Desktop: Google has over 10,000 “gadgets” that work on the Google customizable start page and more that work on their Desktop application as well.
Adobe Apollo: a huge new project that aims to bring rich Internet applications such as Flash—essentially fancy widgets—to the desktop.
Netvibes and Protopage are both web apps based on the idea of personalized home pages that users populate with widgets.
It’s worth noting both widgets and the youth-led decentralization movement are fueling what could be the death of the homepage. This and Ajax technology will drastically affect our current metrics system, not to mention how the internet functions as a whole.
Related:
Widgets 101 (Part 1)
Branded Widgets
Mobile Widgets
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