Patrick April 17th, 2007
It started with desktop widgets. More recently, web widgets have taken center stage. Now, signficant attention is begin focused on mobile widgets.
On the heels of last month’s launch of Zenzui–a Microsoft IP Ventures company–Nokia upped the ante in mobile widgets through its S60 platform for Symbian-based mobile devices. Nokia will offer a widget software development kit (SDK), allowing developers to create custom widgets to run on the S60 platform. The widgets will are purported to be based on web standards, and will supposedly make it easy to transition desktop widgets to the S60 mobile platform. The SDK will be available in Q3 2007.
The announcement about mobile widget support on S60 includes a note that widgets for S60 will be distributed through various channels, including WidSets, the mobile widget gallery site. To date, the widgets on WidSets appear to be custom-developed by the WidSets team, the content owners, or both. WidSets provides its own SDK for developers, who can create XML-based widgets for existing web services, or create entirely new widgets through its proprietary language it says is optimized for mobile devices. This apparently marks the first time that WidSets is getting into the distribution of widgets from another source (albeit one from Nokia Ventures Organization).
The mobile widget landscape is starting to shape up nicely. Here is a quick primer:
- BluePulse: widgets promoted as a part of the BluePulse social networking service for mobile devices.
- Mobidgets: The “>as-yet-released mobile widget offering of Mobease and WebWag (whose main product competes in the webtop space).
- MoJax: An AJAX-based widget application framework, this one from mFoundry, a diversified mobile development company.
- OpenWave: Another AJAX widget software development kit called OpenWave Mobile Widgets, with support for Windows Mobile, Symbian, BREW and other platforms.
- Opera: Still more AJAX widgets, these for Opera Platform, also based on web standards with the ability to easily transition web content to mobile devices that are supported by Opera.
- WidSets: Custom mobile widgets for a variety of mobile devices, plus distribution of Symbian S60 widgets.
- Zenzui: Custom, proprietary “tiles” using Zenzui’s zooming interface for accessing Internet content.
Many of these providers promote their AJAX-based platforms and ease of developing with web standards, each is a proprietary solution in its own right. Content owners must choose between platforms, or be prepared to support many. I’ll delve more deeply into further segmenting the mobtop widget category in a future post.
Technorati Tags: widgets, gadgets, tiles, WidSets, Zenzui, Mobidgets, MoJax, OpenWave, BluePulse
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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Patrick March 28th, 2007
The 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.
Patrick March 28th, 2007
Zenzui execs saw my post on their launch, and the PR team was kind enough to send some images (thanks!). I’ll post more later, but I’ve chosen to show this one first because it is a really compelling example of how widgets can be deployed to extend brand, reach, transactions, customer loyalty and more. Shopping at Amazon.com will likely be far easier using this tile than the Blazer browser on my Treo.
Patrick March 28th, 2007
So, Zenzui is off and running. This independent company is a spinout of Microsoft Ventures and is using technology developed by Microsoft’s R&D group to essentially bring widgets–”tiles” in Zenzui’s vocabulary–to mobile devices. The website lacks a lot of specifics, but it appears the company is not tied to mobile devices that use the Windows Mobile OS, which if true would be a Good Thing.
Apparently three years in the making, Zenzui tiles are reminiscent of Apple iPhone widgets (click on “Widgets” in the lower right corner) announced in January. But Zenzui looks like they are trying to create and control an entire ecosystem for mobile widgets.
Technorati Tags: widgets, mobile, tiles
Patrick March 28th, 2007
I’m sure you know this by now, but you can get widgets for your computer, whether you’re using a Mac or PC. You can get them for the Yahoo Widget Engine for Mac or PC. And you can get them in a wide variety of flavors for the web, like Google Gadgets, virtually every blogging platform, and websites like NetVibes. Now, you can get them for your iPod too.
Koloroo has just announced two widgets for your iPod: TipKalc and KolorWheel. These look interesting, particularly TipKalc, which allows you to calculate 15 and 20% tips and split your check evenly among 1, 2, 3, or 4 people. Pretty slick, as is their very simple, intuitive and uncluttered website. The only downside: you have to pay for both widgets (albeit not much), and Koloroo doesn’t offer a trial version. I’ll bear the burden of buying these and giving them a whirl, and I’ll report back on my review and recommendations.
Technorati Tags: ipod, apple, widget
