Last Thursday, I went to a moderately unsatisfactory conference on widgets. I say it was moderately unsatisfactory, because during the event we saw precisely no widgets at all, but mostly sales pitches from improbably-named companies, one of which used the fantastic bullshit bingo claim that widgets help “leverage virality”, which was so splendid bollocks-language that I made a special note of it.

We also had no examples of how widgets had done, who had used widgets, and how their takeup has been. The audience were more interested in “where’s the money coming from?”, and the whole event appeared to be moderately negative towards widgets and gadgets - probably because the audience didn’t really understand what it was that they were talking about.

I piped up from the back, essentially saying that the big thing that nobody had stressed was the need for an API, and to make that API public. Without a public API, your audience can’t make widgets with your content. Everything you build should have an API. (Thankfully, I practice what I preach, at least in this case).

The BBC runs something called BBC Backstage which contains a (woefully inadequate) list of APIs and feeds that the BBC runs. Some aren’t very reliable, which is something that I wish to change. Some obvious feeds aren’t there yet, which - for radio, at least - I wish to change, too.

One of those feeds for BBC Weather, for which I spent a rainy afternoon coding an iGoogle BBC weather gadget. I placed that blog entry live, announced it on the Backstage mailing list, submitted it to the iGoogle directory, and forgot about it.

The screenshot above, therefore, shows what happens to a widget once released into the wild. As you can see, its takeup is really rather good: it’s regularly getting 8,500 hits every day. And I’ve simply not promoted it. (Nor’s anyone else, from what I can tell). And let’s be very clear: this is a widget which is designed to replace a weather widget which is installed on every single new iGoogle page: hardly the easiest job to convince people to change.

What I’ve not monitored (but could) is how many people use it to click through to the BBC website, to satiate those who wanted ROI information. (It’s not really the purpose of this gadget, being honest.)

So hopefully this information helps those who were at that event, but couldn’t see the benefit of widgets. Build an API - make it open - and watch your community do stuff with your content.

If you’re looking for good widgets to add to your iGoogle front page, by the way, try Media UK’s media news, and Media UK’s live radio and television player. I’ve used them every day since I, er, wrote them.

The screenshot is straight from my Asus Eee PC, which I’ve customised to add a sensible desktop to, instead of the tabbed interface. It’s a five minute job.

Disclosure: I was a guest at the Mashup widget event, and avoided paying the entrance fee. My full disclosure is relevant to this posting.

To an interesting party tonight courtesy of the folks at BBC Backstage, who were kind enough to manage to get me into this party at moderate last-minute. Lots of fascinating people, some even saying that the party reminded them of the last web boom. (I was part of the boom, but not part of the scene back then). I enjoyed meeting many people - some, who were talking about their latest web projects, seemed slightly put out when I asked them what their business model was. It appears that ‘build it, people will come and we’ll figure something out’ is the plan. In which case: be afraid, be very afraid.

The BBC’s Matthew Cashmore was mucking about with something called Twitter - and insisted I join. That’s me, then, at http://www.twitter.com/jamescridland. I have no idea what this website is supposed to do, other than a rather less useful equivalent of a custom message in my Google Talk. Interestingly, it does connect to GoogleTalk, but it ignores my status message - I have to send it messages instead. I’ve been told it’s really addictive. I don’t get it. But then, I don’t get MySpace either, so clearly I’m getting old. (However, I do get Flickr, so maybe I’m still vaguely cool).

Good to meet a lot of very clever people. Having posted in the BBC Backstage mailing list a few times, some knew my name, which was quite flattering; some had read my blog (in particular my Indian High Commission rant, which is now an article of its own right); but actually the highlight of the night was one chap coming up to me, seeing my email address name badge, and wondering what my relationship was to Dave. I was proud to say that he was my brother. The conversation then was about the clever things he’s doing with email. Thank heavens I read his blog.

I’m a firm believer that the BBC Backstage project is one of the cleverest things that the corporation is doing - possibly THE cleverest. What I’m keen to do is, through the stations I work for, be able to similarly contribute data. The BBC’s size and resource probably means that it can set the standards; but commercial radio should be able to use the same API standards to ensure that the whole of the UK’s radio data, for example, is available to those wanting to use it. After all; commercial radio is the market leader for people under 55: it’s arguably more important for commercial radio to make their data available in this way. Perhaps this is one of the roles for the RadioCentre in future.

Many fascinating people; many business cards swapped, and a jolly good time had by all - certainly by me. I’m now the proud owner of a BBC Backstage t-shirt, a copy of Make magazine (splendid magazine, not read that before), and assorted pens and other stuff. The team should be congratulated. So I will. Congratulations, team.

(Later: have spent far too long working out how tagging works, so I could tag this as ‘bbcbackstage’. Done it now, I think.)