Are you widget crazy?

October 9th, 2007

What’s a Widget?

Wikipedia says “A web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. They are derived from the idea of reusable code that has existed for years. Nowadays other terms are used to describe a web widget including: gadget, badge, module, capsule, snippet, mini and flake. Web widgets often but not always use DHTML, Adobe Flash or JavaScript programming languages.”

Web 2.0 is About Widgets Too

I think it’s safe to say the web has gone widget crazy. Are you guilty of joining the crowd on this one? There’s probably a widget for every kind of crowd you can think of. There are networking widgets (think Facebook & Myspace), shopping widgets, blog syndication widgets, game widgets, to-do list widgets…and plenty more. While there are plenty of useful widgets out there, I haven’t seen them yet so I don’t use them. I think this trend is just that — a trend. Widgets use a lot of cool technology but their usefulness isn’t always apparent to me. I like the concept of plugging a small bit of code into my site without a lot of fuss, I just don’t need to post 40 of the latest greatest widgets in my sidebar. Stay with me here. There’s one I really like.

Of all the widgets in the world my favorite of all is BlogRush. I actually use it. When I land on a blog that has the widget I tend to see at least one headline that’s interesting enough to click. This leads to more and more blogs of interest. It’s a great syndication network concept that actually works. I’m reading blogs I haven’t read before.

Just in case you’re not up on the widget trend there are a few posted below. Where do you see these 2 years from now? Will they become near obsolete like your 2 year old computer?