Archive for the 'big picture' Category

Me Widgets and We Widgets

Patrick July 20th, 2007

One of the projects I’ve been working on required that I define a variety of ways of thinking about widgets. As a user experience consultant by trade, I naturally first gravitated to the widget user population, and found it useful to categorize widgets by their intended user. Let me explain.

There are a lot of widgets that I use that I acquire and consume for my own personal purposes. For example, I have a variety of Dashboard Widgets, like Radar In Motion (one of my favorites, especially in the summer south) that are for very personal purposes. I invoke them on my Mac, use them, and then put them away. Because these widgets satisfy a very personal need, I call these “Me Widgets.” With a very broad brush, you can classify all the desktop (Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft), mobile (Widsets, ZenZui, S60, iPhone), and webtop (iGoogle, NetVibes, PageFlakes, FreeWebs) widgets as Me Widgets. Hybrid webtop/desktop widgets (YourMinis, Springwidgets) also fit in this category.

Then there are widgets that are primarily used by one individual to share content with others who visit their blogs, social networking profile pages, and other websites or web pages. For example, Flickr widgets that display your photostreams in your sidebar are popular across blogs and social networks. As a user/publisher, you love the ease of use of adding Flickr to your site, but the primary purpose of the widget is to share those photos with other people. I call this category “We Widgets” because I acquire the widget, but others primarily consume it. We Widgets include the broad group of web widgets, like those served up by WidgetBox and others for use on Typepad, WordPress, Blogger, MySpace and other sites. All of the sidebar content blocks on idgetsWay are widgets, and would be considered We Widgets.

Of course, there are some widgets that can be both Me Widgets and We Widgets as well, and some that sound the same but work just differently enough that the versions are distinctly Me or We. A package tracker, for example, would seem to be a Me Widget, but if you run an intranet, other internal site, a blog about logistics, or a site with office/shipping related content, you might very well publish a package tracker on your site, making it a We Widget. Or, take the Yahoo Flickr Widget, which is inherently personal and therefore a Me Widget, or the Flickr Slideshow from Widgetbox, which is more of a We Widget allowing you to share photos with visitors to your site.

In some future post, I’ll explore the differences in benefits to content owners of We Widgets versus Me Widgets.

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Real downtime, back in action

Patrick July 20th, 2007

My downtime wasn’t so much related to WordPress upgrade as it was due to a couple of major cool projects I’ve been working on. But I’m finally back, ready to update idgetsWay.

Several readers have emailed to ask about quantification of the widget market, and as I’ve told them, I’m not sure that reliable data is possible today. There is still so much activity in this nascent market that it is hard to define, much less quantify. Clearspring, WidgetBox and other widget companies can provide their own statistics, and Niall Kennedy was doing analysis of Google Gadgets, but these numbers are unique to those companies. Aggregate data will be difficult if not impossible to come by. Now that I’ve got a bit of time, I’ll explore this topic further and post my findings.

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Om on the Buzz About Widgets

Patrick May 10th, 2007

Om Malik at GigaOm.com has a thought-proving post about the widget space in reaction to the high level of chatter about widgets in the last couple of weeks.

The widget ecosystem might have attracted a lot of money and attention, but not many users. If you checked out WidgetBox, a good proxy for the ecosystem, a typical popular widget has about 300-to-500 subscribers. And amongst those that are popular, they are the ones, which have an element of personal expression.

Om’s analysis is typically very insightful, but this falls short of what widgets are all about. The widget ecosystem is much larger than web widgets for blogs, social networks, and webtop applications like iGoogle and Netvibes. As Danny wrote in the comments, its critical to think of widgets from a consumer point of view (Joe User), and how they interact with digital products.

Desktop widgets allow interfaces with web-based applications, so as more users move to webtop apps like Google Apps, Zoho, etc., widgets provide a means for quick updates and retrievals of common or important content and functionality. Desktop widgets also allow users to customize their interaction with their computers in ways they could not easily do before.

Widgets are also far better at delivering internet content to mobile devices, like the forthcoming weather widget for Apple’s iPhone. Navigation and interaction are simplified, the user interface is optimized for small screens, and views refresh more quickly, as the heavy lifting (UI rendering and other functions) are done on the device.

It is clear that widgets as we currently think about them have some key challenges to overcome. As Om and readers point out, there are only so many blogs and social profiles, and space on those pages is at a premium. And there are only so many users with the temerity to make widgets work. But widgets are in their infancy, and the User Tri-fecta (usefulness, usability and value) is possible. There is no doubt in my mind that widgets will play a huge role in the future of digital products, allowing users to very easily define their digital experiences to suit their needs.

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Weekly Widget Wroundup

Patrick May 6th, 2007

Today marks the beginning of a new feature on idgetsWay: a weekly widget wroundup of some of the most noteworthy news items in the widget world from the previous week.

  • Clearspring serves 3 billionth widget, and the company is now serving 60 million widgets per day.
  • Google brands its personalized “gadgetized” homepage as “iGoogle.” I’ll have more to say about this later.
  • Google was busy in widgets. They also announced Gadget Ads, widgets in ad-standard sizes and delivered through their advertising platform. Niall wrote a really good post about this development.
  • Another of the big Internet companies, eBay also got busy with widgets, launching eBay To Go, a tool for creating widgets out of auction items. At first glance, these seem to be really well implemented.
  • As reported by MacNN, Apple has filed patents dealing with how to run multiple instances of Dashboard, or collections of widgets.

I’ll attempt a more detailed analysis on each of these in the coming days.

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Update of Widget Market Segmentation

Patrick May 3rd, 2007

widget_mktplace.pngAfter feedback from a few key players in the widget industry, I’ve refined my ideas about the segmentation of the widget marketplace. The refinements clarify the distinction between the Nettop and Pubtop segments. Previously, I defined Nettop companies as syndicators for major content owners; now, I’m referring to Nettop as companies providing syndication services to developers and content owners. I also redefined Pubtop to be widget-friendly social networks, blog platforms, and other publishing systems. The net effect of these changes are that WidgetBox moves from Pubtop to Nettop, and Pubtop now includes MySpace. The chart shows each segment, its definition, and some examples for each.

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Apple TV Widgets via Hack

Patrick April 19th, 2007

Evidence of new uses for widgets, AwkwardTV has released a plug-in for the Apple TV that allows users to install other plug-ins. Once this master plug-in–called Awkward TV Loader–is installed, users can browse and install Awkward TV plug-ins directly from the Apple TV user interface over the Internet. So while the installation of Loader is likely a hack that requires at least a baseline technical knowledge, the discovery and consumption of other plug-ins is quite simple and user-friendly indeed.

Many of the plug-ins are utility applications for managing Apple TV and QuickTime, like the ability to wake other computers via the local area network. Others still are really geeky, like Perlbin, which allows you to run Perl scripts. But several of the plugins might better be called widgets. These include file browser, RSS reader, weather forecast and sports scores. I’m not yet a beta tester (though I’m signing up), so I can’t yet report on how easy or hard it is to install the Loader, or on the actual use of these widgets.

But I can absolutely see a market for these widgets, paricularly a few that make sense in the home media environment. Weather is a perfect example. While listening to my iTunes library over my home entertainment center via Apple TV, I might want to know tomorrow’s weather. Rather than waiting for my local forecast to appear on The Weather Channel, and rather than firing up my home computer to visit Weather.com, I could simply activate the weather widget on the Apple TV.

Other use cases are easy to imagine: After browsing through our movie library on Apple TV and not liking our choices, my family uses Apple TV’s out-of-the-box functionality to view a few movie trailers. We pick one we like, and activate a Showtimes widget that lists our local theaters, movies and showtimes. Take this use case to its logical conclusion, and we should be able to buy tickets to the movie we want to see, right through the widget, courtesy of Fandango or another movie ticket purveyor.

It would not surprise me to see official Dashboard widgets for the Apple TV in the near future. In fact, I’m a bit surprise the company hasn’t provided them already, as it would seem to be a trivial software engineering feat via a simple software upgrade delivered over the Internet. They have already announced limited widget support for the iPhone, and both the iPhone and Apple TV run a modified version of Mac OS X. But Apple has its hands full with the upcoming releases of its iPhone and the desktop version Mac OS X, so it may be a simple matter of resource availability, product road mapping, or some other factors. In the meantime, you’ll have to be satisfied with the Awkward TV solution.

Whether Apple officially releases widgets for Apple TV or not, the bigger picture is the continuing proliferation of widgets into new uses, devices, media, and delivery methods such as Apple TV, Joost, Snap Shots, iPhone, S60 and so on. All manner of companies are realizing the power of allowing users to have greater control in defining their own personal digital experiences.

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Investments in the Widget Space, and an Omission

Patrick April 11th, 2007

While there remains debate in some circles as to whether widgets are capable of producing the returns on investment typically required by venture capital participation, a few VCs are clearly on the pro-widget side of the fence. In my discussion about the segmentation of the widget marketplace, I probably should have included FreeWebs in the Webtop category. FreeWebs allows users, currently at a rate of 20,000 people per day, to create websites essentially from widgets, and they’re now getting 18 million unique visitors per month, according to WashingtonPost.com. And more to the widget point, they offer web widgets as a way to customize sites created on FreeWebs.

But the Washington Post didn’t only remind me that FreeWebs had an interesting widget-related business, it highlighted the fact that they have received $11 million in venture capital. What other widget companies are getting money, how much, and where is it coming from? Here’s a starter list; help me build it by emailing me or replying in the comments..

  • Clearspring: $7.5 million from Novak Biddle, ZG Ventures, Mark jung, Steve Case, Ted Leonsis.
  • FreeWebs: $11 million from Novak Biddle and Columbia Capital.
  • NetVibes: $1 million from Index Ventures, Marc Andreessen, Pierre Chappaz (founder of Kelkoo and Wikio) and Martin Varsavsky (founder of Jazztel, Ya.com and Fon).
  • Slide: Rumor of $20 million from Mayfield, Khosla, BlueRun, and Founders Fund, the latter two of which participated in a first round.
  • Widgetbox: $1.5 million from Hummer Winblad listed, but that was last June. They’ve likely raised more.
  • WidSets: Financial support from Nokia Venture Organization unknown.
  • Zenzui: $12 million from Oak Investment Partners and Hunt Ventures, plus heavy R&D support from Microsoft.

Actually, I’ll need a good bit more time to compile this list, as other priorities demand my attention. But with the investments in widgets made by these companies, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Bebo and others, its safe to say that the widget economy is a $100 million plus market and growing.

Widgets Proliferation Continues: Now on Joost

Patrick April 7th, 2007

I wrote earlier that I expect serious, bankable business models to arise in the widget economy. Even if standalone widget businesses don’t qualify as investment capital-worthy enterprises, the use of widgets will play a key role in new technology products. One such example is Joost. What does Joost have to do with widgets, you ask? It turns out that Joost supports widgets of a sort.

It calls them widgets, anyway. While using Joost, you have the ability to view My Joost. A key element of My Joost is the ability to show or hide one or more of a small collection of widgets. These include Notice Board, News Ticker, Invite Friends, and Channel Chat, which allow you to engage in real-time text chats with other Joost users about the channel you are currently watching, sort of a real-time social network for watching television.

The Joost widgets only work when you are in full-screen mode, and they overlay the broadcast in an elegant, understated fashion. The number of widgets is rather limited today, but remember that Joost is only in beta. It seems likely that Joost has included widgets as a part of their product architecture so they can easily extend it in the future with new features delivered by the widget capability.

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Segmenting the Widget Economy

Patrick April 5th, 2007

I’ve spent a fair amount of time exploring the widget economy in recent weeks, and it occurs to me that there is no easy way to describe the various mutations of widgets that are spawning across the software universe. Intuitively, I wanted a framework on which to better understand the various ways in which widgets are evolving. So I sat down and tried to create one. The landscape is changing daily, so my work here may be outdated as soon as its published, but I find the following widget market segmentation intriguing.

  • Desktop: Apple, Opera, Windows, Yahoo
  • Webtop: Google, NetVibes, PageFlakes, YourMinis
  • Netttop: Clearspring
  • Pubtop: Blogger, Typepad, Widgetbox, WordPress
  • Mobtop: Koloroo, Opera Mobile, Widsets, Zenzui

The examples in each of these segments is not meant to be exhaustive. To be sure, there are many other purveyors of widgets that fit into each. Perhaps one day, I’ll attempt to quantify the widget universe further and create a detailed list. In the meantime, read more to learn how I define each of these segments.

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Clearspring has a new President & COO

Patrick April 3rd, 2007

Clearspring, one of the early leaders in the widget syndication space with deals from content providers like NBA.com and CBS, has a new President & COO. Jay Rappaport, most recently president of Vonage America, is also a former executive at America Online, where he led several different divisions. This is a major deal for Clearspring and the widget space in general, as it signals a continuing investment and interest in the market.

yourminis attempting tri-fecta widget strategy

Patrick April 2nd, 2007

Like NetVibes and PageFlakes, YourMinis allows you to customize a collection of personalized web pages by dragging, dropping, configuring and arranging widgets. Content includes a wide variety of information sources–from major media outlets like ESPN, CNN and The New York Times–as well as fun stuff like a live webcam from SeaWorld.

But YourMinis is taking a broad-sweeping widget strategy, competing not only in this webtop category, but also taking on the WidgetBox Blidget service for turning any blog into a widget, and going head-to-head with the established desktop platforms: Apple’s Dashboard, Yahoo’s Widget Engine and Microsoft’s Windows Vista Gadgets. This is the first of what appears to be a comprehensive multi-platform widget strategy.

What’s the deal with Web widgets?

Patrick March 29th, 2007

Most of what is blogged about today is web widgets, either the kind where you can grab some code and place it on your website, or click a button and add it to a particular blogging platform, or visit a site and compose your own personal start page using widgets.

Yeah, the web is an interesting area, but its not everything (and I’m an internet consultant, for gosh sakes!). How about Apple’s Dashboard, Yahoo’s Widget Engine, and Windows Vista Gadgets? What’s funny is that this doesn’t even remotely begin to explore the power and possibility of widgets. How about BMW’s iDrive, or AppleTV, or mobile phones, or the display on your refrigerator?

Everyone getting all hot and bothered about web widgets needs to chill. While web standards are going to be a major factor–Apple was derided for aping Konfabulator, which it did because K wasn’t based on web standards, yet Yahoo’s Widget Engine (once called Konfabulator) recently moved to web standards–there are many other platforms that will be key to the widget economy. Remember how everyone panned Microsoft’s watch? Watch out. the concept will rise again, this time powered by widgets.

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Om on Widgets in the Enterprise

Patrick March 29th, 2007

In his column in the latest edition of Business 2.0, Om Malik of GigaOm takes a quick look at how widgets might be used in the workplace. His conclusion seems to be that he doesn’t think there is much money to be made in widgets, except for companies that cater to enterprise with widgets for sales tracking and forecasting, for example. Salesforce.com and SAP are beginning to use widgets, but efforts thus far have apparently been limited.

I agree that there are tremendous opportunities to develop widgets for enterprise, but believe a handful of business models for widgets outside of enterprise will emerge. The future of software is small, discreet, reusable, connectible, and configurable applications. Businesses may or may not become profitable on widgets in their current form, but expect this market to evolve dramatically, and previously unenvisioned models to appear.

WidSets versus Zenzui: Mobile Widget Deathmatch?

Patrick March 28th, 2007

WidSets LogoThe launch of Zenzui raises a key question: how does Zenzui differ from WidSets? Both offer widgets for mobile devices. There’s much more info on WidSets.com about how it works, and WidSets has first-mover advantage after launching on June 6, 2006. But Zenzui claims to have been in development for 3 years, so they may be much further along than it appears. If I could, I’d install a few WidSets, give them a test drive and write you a review, but alas, their supported device list doesn’t include the Palm Treo 650.

What am I doing, and do you care?

Patrick March 28th, 2007

As I launch this blog and consider the “eat my own dog food” philosophy, I am looking carefully at all sorts of widgets that are compatible with WordPress Sidebar Widgets in particular, and web widgets in general. Naturally, I’ve taken a look at Twitter.

Twitter is interesting. And its certainly getting lots of buzz. But do I really want to broadcast where I am or what I’m doing? And honestly, do you want to know?

Newsweek Declares 2007 Year of the Widget

Patrick March 28th, 2007

Newsweek LogoFROM THE “IN CASE YOU MISSED IT DEPARTMENT”

In December, Newsweek Magazine declared 2007 the Year of the Widget. The bottom line? Widgets are all about personalizing your online life.