the history of widgets

Today I saw a comment in "marketingfacts" blog ( dutch blog)

The article was about the upcoming gadgets , as seen on the MIX'07 Disney case > see my post earlier.

He made a great comment about the idea of desktop applications, but then in 1981.
The story involves Steve Jobs, Bill Atkinson and others.

READ IT HERE!


Here's the next step, Steve Jobs introducing the MAC in 1984!

from pull to push

The increasing popularity for desktop applications, webbrowsers, widgets and application platforms the question rises what will be the possibilities for the branding and Marketing issues of companies.

With Swoot this is an important part of our strategy.

How to use the rich internet solutions for brands in their strategy is providing uniqueness and experience for the brands end users.

i.e. Nike is trying hard with cool flash sites to get to the user and make them experience the Nike feeling, or Heineken beer is sponsoring the UEFA champions leaugue to get to the soccer fan with their brand. They even created a widget-like application wich runs on your desktop.

So user experience is the key factor. Gladly Swoot can deliver that. Within several weeks two branding concepts from Swoot will launch ( a cartoon tv company and a company for newsvideo distribution). And more brands which we are negotiating with as we speak ( of course I'll keep you up to date with that).

So what does Swoot add to that uniqueness and experience factor > the magic word is Push technology.

Because of the fact that our technology is server based , you don't have to download an application. It runs from a server adress and with that the browser can work like a website.

Because of the single plugin we use, we give brands the possibility to build their own branded plugin, which will install a branded icon on your desktop.

This technology also enables the possibility to create an interactive icon. This icon will blink, make a sound, change color or highlight every time the backend is changed. So every time the browser content or the webcontent inside the browser is changed the branded icon can interact with the desktop of the user and makes narrowcasting become possible.

With this feature the pull strategie ( scream to everyone "come to my website") can make place for push strategy ( don't scream , just push forward the change).

Underneath you'll see some examples

netvibes solves widget platform problem?

In the growing interest for widgets, the need for a universal platform gets bigger by the day.

On fowa event Netvibes Tariq Krim announced a universal platform on the upcoming "coriander" release.

This is great , everyone who wants to build a widget first has to choose the single platform to build on, like yahoo, google, microsoft etc. Netvibes release of the universal platform can fix this problem.

And what we saw on the FOWA presentation looks promising.

This will solve the problem for the standards of vista, google and mac for now. The update later on will include yahoo and others.

Tariq also mentioned that netvibes will be open sourcing the platform so any widget platform can be included.

A big advantage for the widgets and well done by netvibes.

here are some screenshots:

The Swoot Project

Here you will read the amazing story of the swoot project;

What is it:
Swoot developed a technology platform which enables you to view the web in a new rich way. The platform give designers and web builders the control over the browser instead just the content like websites, flash or widgets. So what does this mean, simple; You can create anything what is in your mind regarding design, functionality and content. You can let your browser design become content.
This sounds to good to be true, what is the catch. There's isn't any ( one, not yet available on apple, you need Microsoft OS). The platform and technology are freeware, there are no boundries.

How does it work;
For anyone who just wants to enjoy browsing > just download the plug in and click and enjoy!

For anyone who is interested in building;

First you have to install a plug-in from swoot.
A browser can be designed in i.e. Photoshop and used to create a so called .bdt file. This .bdt file is the carrier of the browser you develop. Then you get it on your server of ours and you'll get a url adress that ends on .bdt. This adress launches your browser. There is a great tutorial ( aka swootorial) online a www.swoot.com .

Examples:
We make browsers to show the world what you can do with the technology but we rather have anyone around the world use it to build their owns.
Beside that, we build browsers for brands. The technology gives a brand the possibility to get a branded environment where users can surf and enjoy content from that brand ( i.e. jetix, kids tv with a branded kids environment where kids can enjoy the Jetix cartoons and experience online >this will launch next april). Beside that brands can get their own branded plug-in, which will give them a solid place on the desktop > one click away from the user and top of mind!

So download the plug-in >" swoot plug-in" and try and experience the examples below;

- http://www.bluesymbols.com/ ( on the site you can click to the browsers they made)
- Spiderman
- Superman
- Mini Cooper
- Swoot for kids ( safe)
- Cartoon TV
- Guitarbrowser
- Marvel

So check these out, this says more than a thousand words!
When you installed the plug-in and click on the desktop icon you'll get access to much more browsers.....

In the near future you'll see much more about the swoot project on this blog!