Dion Hinchcliffe @ Web2.0 Berlin
6th of November 2007 by admin
Dion Hinchcliffe is playing a blinder at for the last 45 minutes or so over here at Web2.0 Berlin on the subject of widgets, bagdes and gadgets.
Dion took it from scratch and assumed incomplete knowledge of the subject by the audience – not a bad idea as there are certainly VC’s, bricks and mortar retailers (& myself) etc present here amongst the geeks.
Here is my attempt at a summary of Dion’s explanation of the basics:
A Widget is a mini programme which can be distributed with a copy and paste – many blogging platforms will even allow you to choose from a directory of widgets. A Badge is a display of content which is pulled from other sites i.e. YouTube. A Gadget is a more formal widget model from Google and Microsoft
Key Aspects:
-Supreme ease of consumption and distribution, radical ease of use gets the uptake copy and paste is best
-Connects to their underlying sites to provide value
-Have a business model baked into it driving site traffic, content consumption etc
The power of widgets:
-Makes your web app's functionality and content portable
-Users do the work to broaden you products distribution 27/7
-Widgets supply mash-up
Who uses widgets and badges:
-Consumers and end users
-Developers and prosumers
-Businesses
Finally, Dion is firm in his view that Google will deploy widgets to help them reach their trillion dollar company target.