There's a lot of excitement around widgets these days, so I thought I'd dig into the subject a little bit considering their obvious complement to Web services and the live XML-based data feeds we make available at StrikeIron.
First, widgets have been around for a long, long time - just under different names. For example, in the mid-90's, Microsoft had something called "Active Desktop Items." Even in the early 80's, I remember my Mac had "Desk Accessories", including such items as a clock, calculator, and notepad. So the concept is nothing new. In fact, if you think of widgets purely as convenient non-intrusive mini-applications, you could probably find examples going back even further.
Why widgets now?
First, there is the ever-growing need to make everyday tasks easier. Customizing a set of desktop widgets creates a non-intrusive way for people to keep an eye on the data and information that is important to them without having to open a browser, check a Web page, and possibly fight some advertisements just to get some relevant information. This enables quick action when something important happens in a manner that doesn't rely on a browser window being open, that takes up a small amount of our workspace, is live on startup, and can easily be moved around the screen. With an occasional glance, network administrators, financial analysts, CEOs, sales professionals, and others who rely on data can gain the information they need and interact with the world accordingly, utilizing the least amount of energy expenditure possible. Sounds like a winner.
The above concepts that make the widgets useful are just plain difficult to achieve in a browser or multiple open browsers, and with all of the incompatibilities that exist between IE, Firefox, and others these days - developing desktop widgets can seem easy.
Combine this with the liberating of data occurring with Web services standards and the accessibility of data both within the enterprise, as well as externally across the Web and you can see the perfect storm forming. Web services standards like SOAP and REST, and feed standards such as RSS and Atom are providing the fuel that is igniting the widget revolution. Suddenly there is more data than ever before to provide to the desktop. Because widgets make life easier, they are becoming more and more popular and widespread, and of course launching a whole new wave of venture-backed startups - smart people who have done their homework.
Across the Web, widgets are spreading like wildfire. For example in our world, various widget forms are emerging that enable StrikeIron users to perform various tasks instantly via a desktop widget such as looking up a sales tax rate, sending an SMS message, or getting company demographics for whoever is on the other end of the phone, all while monitoring real-time financial information. This is helping business and desktop users leverage the benefits of Web services and their data cargo like never before.
In the enterprise, there are still some challenges ahead for mass adoption. First, we need to figure out a way for widgets to be automatically updated so we don't relive the software distribution nightmares of the past. Also, since enterprise widgets often provide the ability to interact with an application without launching the entire application, they should enable functionality such as Single Sign On and follow business rules, and of course be configurable.
Of course, widgets are both cool and useful. At the end of the day, these widgets will make our jobs easier, which in turn will give us more time to get more done which will probably make our jobs harder again - but hey, that's progress these days, right?
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