Comments on: A day in the life of a widget http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/ Radio, broadcasting, websites, and beer. Possibly. Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:23:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: iGoogle gadgets for BBC News, BBC Weather, and BBC Radio - blog - James Cridland http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-33951 iGoogle gadgets for BBC News, BBC Weather, and BBC Radio - blog - James Cridland Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:16:59 +0000 http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-33951 [...] this year, I blogged about my BBC Weather widget, which, as the BBC News widget, I built as a bit of relaxation coding [...] [...] this year, I blogged about my BBC Weather widget, which, as the BBC News widget, I built as a bit of relaxation coding [...]

]]> By: Jenni Lloyd http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32356 Jenni Lloyd Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:31:56 +0000 http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32356 Hi James I was also at the widget mashup event the other night. I've been to a few of these events before and it's always a slightly strained mix of suits and scruffy types. The social networking one had a similarly negative tone - in the 'I can't believe people have got time to spend on facebook' vein. Because of the awkward nature of the audience it probably would have been better to define the majority interest at the beginning - which I think Ivan tried to do but was thrown off course by the freeform text question thingy and the sales pitches from Techenlightenment and Widget Avenue. In terms of real life examples I would have been tempted to look at a business like the publishers Random House. They are an exemplar of a traditional company operating within the confines of a very old-school business model who have taken an amazing step forward by digitising their entire back catalogue. This enables them to offer their product - books - to a digital audience in new and extraordinary ways. Interesting write up here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/random_house_widgets_and_web_services.php Perhaps what was missing at the event last week was a clear understanding of 'why' a business might pursue a widget strategy - which points to a lack of understanding in the changes to the way consumers are accessing content, products and services. It seems to be short sighted not to at least want to have a play with new technology, if only to gain understanding for the future. You might also be interested in this case study: http://www.sexywidget.com/my_weblog/2007/05/anatomy_of_a_wi.html *disclosure: I work for Nixon McInnes who were represented on the panel Hi James

I was also at the widget mashup event the other night. I’ve been to a few of these events before and it’s always a slightly strained mix of suits and scruffy types. The social networking one had a similarly negative tone - in the ‘I can’t believe people have got time to spend on facebook’ vein.

Because of the awkward nature of the audience it probably would have been better to define the majority interest at the beginning - which I think Ivan tried to do but was thrown off course by the freeform text question thingy and the sales pitches from Techenlightenment and Widget Avenue.

In terms of real life examples I would have been tempted to look at a business like the publishers Random House. They are an exemplar of a traditional company operating within the confines of a very old-school business model who have taken an amazing step forward by digitising their entire back catalogue. This enables them to offer their product - books - to a digital audience in new and extraordinary ways. Interesting write up here:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/random_house_widgets_and_web_services.php

Perhaps what was missing at the event last week was a clear understanding of ‘why’ a business might pursue a widget strategy - which points to a lack of understanding in the changes to the way consumers are accessing content, products and services. It seems to be short sighted not to at least want to have a play with new technology, if only to gain understanding for the future.

You might also be interested in this case study:
http://www.sexywidget.com/my_weblog/2007/05/anatomy_of_a_wi.html

*disclosure: I work for Nixon McInnes who were represented on the panel

]]> By: James Cridland http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32355 James Cridland Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:44:16 +0000 http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32355 Ah, yes. The auto-discovery one works, the one in the side-bar works, but the ones in the footer... didn't. Until now. Bah. Ah, yes. The auto-discovery one works, the one in the side-bar works, but the ones in the footer… didn’t. Until now. Bah.

]]> By: Paul http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32353 Paul Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:06:00 +0000 http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32353 A *working* RSS feed is also good James... :-) There has been an error of some kind. Ack! FeedBurner could not deliver this feed to you because of the specific problem listed below: Feed Address: http://rss.james.cridland.net/JamesCridlandsBlog HTTP Error (Code) and Message: (404) Feed not found error: FeedBurner cannot locate this feed URI. A *working* RSS feed is also good James… :-)

There has been an error of some kind. Ack!
FeedBurner could not deliver this feed to you because of the specific problem listed below:

Feed Address: http://rss.james.cridland.net/JamesCridlandsBlog

HTTP Error (Code) and Message: (404) Feed not found error: FeedBurner cannot locate this feed URI.

]]> By: Brian Butterworth http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32347 Brian Butterworth Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:16:19 +0000 http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32347 I love your weather iGoogle gadget. I did a simple backstage' gadget - one that puts the live stream of BBC News 24 on the Vista sidebar. It could do more, I guess, but 60,500 people have downloaded it now. http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=c10fdb04-dab5-4936-b317-411750afcc86&bt=1&pl=1 And there's a iGoogle version of the same one: http://www.google.co.uk/ig/adde?hl=en&moduleurl=http://ukfree.tv/bbcnews24_gadget.xml&source=imag& I love your weather iGoogle gadget.

I did a simple backstage’ gadget - one that puts the live stream of BBC News 24 on the Vista sidebar. It could do more, I guess, but 60,500 people have downloaded it now.

http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=c10fdb04-dab5-4936-b317-411750afcc86&bt=1&pl=1

And there’s a iGoogle version of the same one:

http://www.google.co.uk/ig/adde?hl=en&moduleurl=http://ukfree.tv/bbcnews24_gadget.xml&source=imag&

]]> By: James Cridland http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32339 James Cridland Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:52:16 +0000 http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32339 Course, I kind of meant that everything should have some kind of data feed (an RSS feed being the simplest, and what I use here). I certainly felt there was interest in the room, and appreciate your points. Course, I kind of meant that everything should have some kind of data feed (an RSS feed being the simplest, and what I use here).

I certainly felt there was interest in the room, and appreciate your points.

]]> By: Ivan Pope http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32333 Ivan Pope Sun, 02 Mar 2008 14:25:04 +0000 http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/#comment-32333 James, Thanks for an excellent blog post. Sorry you found the event 'moderately unsatisfactory'. I guess a main reason for this is, with a one hour event, it's hard to anticipate and cover off all levels and directions of interest. The event was about commercial widget uses and opportunities, and I sort of presupposed that the audience would have got past the 'what does a widget look like' point. While the audience did appear to have a slightly negative view of widgets and a 'show us the money' fixation, there were also a lot of very interesting questions coming up around issues such as standards, SEO, resources etc, which made me feel there was more interest in the room than we were able to deal with. As I said, one hour is a very short time to get to the nub of a subject. While I agree tht everything should have an API, an API is not essential for a widget. Plenty of widgets use RSS feeds and there are plenty of widget and widgetised applications around that give users a lot of value without opening up a public API. My widget conference, (now called) Widget Web Expo, will have two days with two streams of widget content in New York in June and London in October - we'll cover APIs and mashups and platforms and standards and technologies and tools. And I guarantee you'll see more widgets on the screen than you really want to. Now I'm going to 'drop a blog' about your widget. [Disclosure - I was the Chair of the above event] James,
Thanks for an excellent blog post. Sorry you found the event ‘moderately unsatisfactory’. I guess a main reason for this is, with a one hour event, it’s hard to anticipate and cover off all levels and directions of interest. The event was about commercial widget uses and opportunities, and I sort of presupposed that the audience would have got past the ‘what does a widget look like’ point.
While the audience did appear to have a slightly negative view of widgets and a ’show us the money’ fixation, there were also a lot of very interesting questions coming up around issues such as standards, SEO, resources etc, which made me feel there was more interest in the room than we were able to deal with. As I said, one hour is a very short time to get to the nub of a subject.
While I agree tht everything should have an API, an API is not essential for a widget. Plenty of widgets use RSS feeds and there are plenty of widget and widgetised applications around that give users a lot of value without opening up a public API.
My widget conference, (now called) Widget Web Expo, will have two days with two streams of widget content in New York in June and London in October - we’ll cover APIs and mashups and platforms and standards and technologies and tools. And I guarantee you’ll see more widgets on the screen than you really want to.
Now I’m going to ‘drop a blog’ about your widget.
[Disclosure - I was the Chair of the above event]

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