My Errant Mind

Who would have thought widgets would become such a presence in daily life? The word widget itself suggests that these curious oddities are unmemorable things.

What Is A Widget?

According to Dictionary.com Unabridged (v. 1.1), a widget is:

widg·et [wij-it]
–noun
1. a small mechanical device, as a knob or switch, esp. one whose name is not known or cannot be recalled; gadget: a row of widgets on the instrument panel.
2. something considered typical or representative, as of a manufacturer’s products: the widgets coming off the assembly line.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a widget is:

widg·et (wĭj’ĭt)
n.
A small mechanical device or control; a gadget.
An unnamed or hypothetical manufactured article.

On the Web, a widget is one of those nifty client-side scripting gadgets that provide you with news, music, photos, quotes—and many other things. Oh, and it appears somewhere on a website or blog, seemingly in order to distract you from what you’re about.

Viral Marketing At Its Best

Alas, Web widgets are not so easily forgotten. They are everywhere you go on the Web these days. You simply cannot escape them. Many of them are useful or fun, however, and this is partly the why of their viral nature.

There is something about a tool that we see, like, and can acquire for ourselves and put to use—usually for free—which calls to us. It probably goes back to the early history of the human race, when such things as fire envy and hide-scraper envy were common afflictions.

Such as the case may be, it works. I happened across Chez Danielle - Recipe Journal which inspired this post. [Thanks Danielle, by the way.] As soon as I saw some of the widgets on her page, I wanted them. Since her blog made me hungry, I had to go eat something first before signing up to try out one of the recently discovered widgets.

That’s how viral works. Word of mouth (or stomach, occasionally). One of the bloggers I have as a contact on MyBlogLog viewed my profile, which reminded me I had wanted to check out that person’s blog. Danielle was a friend in this person’s contacts list, and out of curiosity I checked out her blog, saw the widgets, and signed up. Now I begin spreading more Web 2.0 myself.

My Widget Toolkit (Admittedly Bare Bones)

I have had a widget on this blog for quite some time. It is a useful widget from MyBlogLog and it has generated site traffic for me—which I consider sufficient justification for its inclusion. Occasionally, pictures of cute women appear in the widget, and that also helps justify its existence. There are a few other widgets that I think are fun and useful.

Widgetbox makes a fun and useful widget. It allows you to put your blog feed onto other sites and allows you to find other interesting feeds to stick on your site if you like. I set one up myself for this blog. If you’re curious, you can find it here: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/my-errant-mind

Now, that’s a neat idea. Easy and cool aggregation in a slick looking interface.

However, it may be just a lot of bloat wrapped around what could be done rather and without having to log into a website, set up an account and so forth and so on. Whatever. The point is that it was interesting and fun just going through the process. Now, if someone adds it to their site, it increases the odds of my blog getting more widely read—and I am all for that.

Another widget I find more than useful is LoudFusion’s various MP3 players. Why do I say more than useful? For a music fanatic it is just the thing to help one pass the day online. As I mentioned in a previous post about the need for insulating my information flow, my personal desktop portal is taking shape—and now it gets music added to the mix.

Some widgets are not very useful; some are walking a thin line. Others are useful, but will take some getting used to.

An interesting one is the AnswerTips widget by Answers.com. Install it into your site template and visitors can simply double-click on any word and a pop-up tool-tip window appears letting you know all about the word you were seeking information on.

Widgets I Would Like To See

• As I mentioned in my previous post, a widget to merge multiple RSS feeds into one and filter job searches would be cool. The moment I discovered Indeed.com, I knew I had a prime candidate for Yahoo! Pipes, which I wrote about previously.
• How about one that you import news feeds, and if a reader sees a headline they like, pops open a small window that allows them to read the first paragraph or two and click on a “remember to read later” button which bookmarks it and closes the window. This would help ensure visitors don’t leave your site.
• How about an ultra-flyweight email client? A widget that allows you to pop open a window with a form that offers absolutely no features other than entering your name, email address, and typing a message. No HTML, no crazy XSS attacks. The widget could automatically attach the URL of the site it was sent from. Take it a step further: allow people who sign up for the widget to create a mailing list so that they could click a checkbox and send it the entire list rather than just one individual.

I have some other ideas in mind, but will keep them to myself at the moment. I’m going to see about creating my own widgetized work-flow and information portal. If I can find suitably lightweight blogware, it would be fun to have widgets arranged so that I could work more comfortably and have some fun.

Imagine logging into your admin page and there’s your music player with your favorite playlist, your flyweight email client, your favorite RSS feeds, and other tools that a blogger might want. All in one interface so you don’t have to have desktop versions of those applications open.

I’m working on it. If anyone out there likes the concept and creates their own version of it (or has already done so previously), let me know. I would love to hear about any results.

Now, it’s time to put on a pot of coffee. No, wait. It’s dinner time. Coffee will follow…

See? Widgets have me losing track of time, even when I’m working.

widget. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/widget (accessed: February 26, 2007).

widget. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/widget (accessed: February 26, 2007).