The Web has been moving toward snappable content for some time. It’s the middle ground between a site owner wanting content and a content producer wanting exposure. The name we’ve given them, widgets, isn’t especially creative, but it does describe their most basic properties: small, usable, and interchangeable.
For example, here is a WeatherBug Widget showing the current conditions in Portland:
Last week the Portland Web Innovators had a great presentation/discussion on widgets. Kevin Tate and two of his fellow members of the StepChange Group gave a history, an overview, and discussed how they use widgets.
Though a widget can be a lot of things, the most interesting to me are the kind that are snappable web content, like the weather details above. I can easily include someone else’s content in my site. This content can come in different forms:
- Static. The content is the same as the day I picked it, like embedding a YouTube video
- Updating. The widget pulls in new content, lik the latest headlines, or a word of the day.
- Interactive. Visitors to my site can use the widget to find what they want.
There can also be combinations of these. For example, I might choose to show my favorite WiFi hotspot (static), but the widget also shows popular places in the same zip code (updating), while providing the visitor the chance to plug in their own zip code (interactive).
Along with making a widget useful to the visitors of a site, the key is to make them easy to snap in. Widget-making is about being a People’s Programmer. Make the technology simple enough, and anyone can share what you’ve done.
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