Gettin' Wiggy With It...Widgets on the Web
Are you a savvy web developer or even a novice aspiring for a career in web development? Or maybe you just like to add cool stuff to your MySpace, Facebook, or blog? If you fit into one of these groups, listen up. Widgets are the word. And widgets are part of a new paradigm in web development that encompasses the social and collaborative nature of the internet.
So what the heck is a widget? A widget is typically a reusable component that can be easily incorporated into any web page by inserting a portable chunk of code. Widget developers do a lot of the hard work in creating functional components that can be shared and consumed by the larger user community. Many widgets also offer some level of customization to best integrate with the existing branding or theme of a web page. Widgets are typically built using a combination of HTML, JavaScript, AJAX and/or Flash. But other flavors can also exist. Another advantage to widgets are their ability to facilitate rapid application development. Why reinvent the media player..er, wheel..if you don't explicitly have to do so?
There are literally hundreds of widgets already available and I expect this marketplace will have a massive growth explosion in the next few years, particularly due to their universal nature and the aggressive growth of social networks. Some good examples of widgets are blogging enhancements, hit counters, badges for services like Twitter, interactive games, messaging and communication services, search engines, music players, and video players. You may have already used or encountered a widget and not even know it. Ever see a YouTube video on MySpace? Ever wondered how some bloggers have gotten badges placed on their site? Ever seen Google ads displayed on a web page (via AdSense)? These are all widgets. Many are free and some can even make you money such as Amazon.com's Add Quick Linker Widget with Amazon Associates ID (affiliate program). In addition to blogs, social networks, and web sites, widgets are also becoming more supported and popular on the developing web desktop environments such as PageFlakes and NetVibes.
Three of the leading resources for widgets are WidgetBox, YourMinis, and ClearSpring. Each site offers a library of hundreds of web widgets. I have personally used WidgetBox on several occassions and found it to be an outstanding resource in my arsenal of web development tools.
Widgets will likely continue to contribute to the web 2.0 movement. With tools like widgets and new web-based development platforms, which I will be covering in my next post, developers are discovering new and exciting ways to rapidly program web applications and deliver innovative solutions with less cost to the bottomline.
TypePad already supports most widgets including their own custom widgets called Blidgets. Since Six Apart also owns and runs VOX, why aren't widgets supported?!?! Contact VOX and let them know that you want widget support.
Additional Resources:
- Read/WriteWeb: Web 2.0 Expo: All Things Widgets
- Read/WriteWeb: Widgetsphere: New Playground For Marketers
- Read/WriteWeb: Widget services ramping up
- Read/WriteWeb: ClearSpring enters the widget space with a developer focus
- Read/WriteWeb: Widgetbox Releases Blidgets
- Read/WriteWeb: ClearSpring Gets $5.5M from AOL Founders
- Read/WriteWeb: Widgetbox calls to widgetize the Web
- Read/WriteWeb: Widget services ramping up
