2007 Year of the Widget

Newsweek saluted 2007 as the Year of the Widget (print version):

…thanks to widgets, taking multiple steps to track down headlines in one place and then check your e-mail in another may seem woefully outdated this time next year. These mini-applications—also called “gadgets”—are simple bits of code, easily dragged onto a desktop or pasted into a personal page, where they are constantly updated with whatever information you want. “It’s the exact opposite of what the Web used to be,” explains Om Malik, a tech journalist and founding editor of gigaom.com. Last month Malik and Niall Kennedy, another tech blogger, organized and hosted Widgets Live—an entire sold-out conference devoted to the topic (in, where else?, San Francisco). “Widgets,” he says, “bring the Web to you.” Think of it as tech jewelry—bling for your blog; ice for your desktop.

I think Widgets, like WordPress Widgets (which I call “Sidebar Accessories”), are fun and a lot of times very useful. I also think some Widgets are a lot of useless blog bling.

The need to accessorize your blog is important when those accessories complement the whole. I use WordPress Widgets to add “Related Articles” and Feeds to this blog’s sidebar. But I certainly don’t add things my reader’s don’t need to see and aren’t helpful. Still, these are fun, and blogs are supposed to be fun, right?

So I want to know which Widgets were your personal favorite over this past year? Are there some Widgets you would like to see on WordPress.com? What are your dream Widgets?

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network

Member of the 9Rules Blogging Network

4 Comments

Kanwal

Posted January 8, 2007 at 1:40 pm | Permalink

We are looking to write more about widgets and have a dedicated blog about widgets.

Look to us for the latest in Widgets BUZZ

John Baker

Posted January 8, 2007 at 7:00 pm | Permalink

Is it possible to have different widgets on different pages?
Can I have one set of widgets on my blog’s front page and another set of widgets on the permalink page?

Lorelle VanFossen

Posted January 8, 2007 at 7:09 pm | Permalink

In a WordPress.com blog? No. On a full version WordPress blog, you can do anything you want if you know how to do it.

And a minor educational note: there is no such thing as a “permalink page”. There is the front page of your blog and then blog posts or post pages or web pages. Permalinks are the address (URL) of your blog and its posts. There is a lot of confusion over all these similar names and terminology.

Darmok

Posted January 10, 2007 at 3:15 am | Permalink

Speaking of the utility of widgets, what purpose does the “Meta” widget serve to readers? I have never been able to figure it out.