The Coming Widget Wave

Widgets are getting more and more popular. The gapingvoid widget lets you display Hugh's latest cartoon on your web site or blog. I liked this brief note on widgets.

Call them widgets, gadgets, modules or even blog bling. But no matter how you classify the tiny chunks of code showing up as embedded portable boxes across the web and on desktops, they're set to change the way content is delivered and consumed. Smarter widgets – essentially , contextually aware widgets, which, like AdSense ads, can post content or make suggestions based on user behavior online are the next ones that are getting deployed.

As I wrote recently in the widget economy, the world is really changing. Loosely coupled services – we have been hearing this from the early days of web services & SOA, are suddenly getting mainstream – so much so that all these demonstrate that scalable applications can be built using widgets . RSS & Widgets are about to change the frontiers of web technology landscape itself – this opens up tremendous technical and business possibilities. It is also to be noted that by enterprise technology players that the consumer applications are fast embracing cutting edge technologies and are becoming far more successful – in terms of innovation & reach. The enterprise players need to be relevant in the changing world – by being more innovative and caring for the customers in rolling out leading edge features. Fights like this, could only slow the progress of large players adopting new things, which may open up opportunities for smaller players to move faster. I am fully aware that for larger players to embrace newer concepts across their huge stacks is indeed a big task – starting from vision, design , engineering, rollouts, support, integration etc. Unfortunately, these are the features that customers would like their preferred tech vendors/partners to help them leverage – faster, better and cheaper. Its time that the large enterprise software players coming up with such things without raising noise levels(just publicity, conference talk and analyst endorsements) and let the results speak for itself.