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January 3, 2007

speculation

2007: Year of the widget

Posted Jan. 3, ’07, 7:34 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Apple » Speculation

Widgets Despite our recent entries suggesting the demise of Dashboard, NewsWeek has declared 2007 as the year of the widget. Isn’t this more than just a little late? I understand that Vista will make this a standard feature in a huge portion of the populace, but Yahoo! Widgets, Dashboard, and Google Desktop still haven’t been able between the three of them to really to get even the most geeky users to really embrace them.

Sure, I’m sure Om Malik would disagree, as would anyone betting on this as the next step in web interaction. I’m not saying that Widgets/Gadgets/whatever-else-you-want-to-call-them will disappear. Here’s my real question though. Widgets have been around for so long now, is Vista really going to make people suddenly pay attention? Does the fact that the side bar is enabled by default going to make people realize that the burning need in their life can be fulfilled by this technology? Maybe it’s just me, but this feels like hype trying to push a technology that hasn’t taken off into taking off.

I can understand the idea of modules that get put into some kind of start page, but that technology isn’t new. It’s been around for a very long time (I remember customizing my “My Yahoo!” page years and years back). Maybe I’m missing something but I’m lacking the handhold to grasp what’s so new and why something so simple would be the hot technology of this year.


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