What's a widget?

A widget used to be a description of some generic manufactured product, but now it is a real thing. Today we are hearing more and more about widgets, so here is a quick summary from a marketer's perspective. Simply defined, a widget is a portable chuck of computer code that can be embedded into a web page. A widget can be static or interactive and is often used to extend the widget maker's business to other websites. Widgets can be content, which updates automatically like the weather, a simple application such as a game or a form. For example, you can look to the right of this page and see how I have installed a simple widget of the top viral videos. I have nothing to do with updating this, I merely embedded the code into the blog template and voila, it appears and keeps refreshing itself. There are many ways to use widgets to effectively build your business. You tube created widgets to allow myspace.com users to embed video on their profile pages. They used the heavy traffic of myspace to draw an audience to their website and like magic it exploded. Building widgets is not that difficult - if you know what you want. You need a clear cut strategy in sync with your business goals and most importantly you need to make an effort against syndicating it.

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