Honestly, i’m not really comfortable with the term “widget”. Since the term is somehow confusing to me. Some people say it is derived from the combination of “window” and “gadget”. Then there is web widget and desktop widget. Huh?
But whatever the term, people know it, use it and some of them even dedicate their life to develop it. And it grows everyday to such a point that Newsweek is proclaming that 2007 as the Year of the Widget.
And things are getting more interesting. Today, Google Code team announced that Google Gadgets now can be converted to run in Windows Vista Sidebar and Mac OS X Dashboard. Using third party utility application, Mesa Dynamics. You can check out the converter for Windows here, and for Mac OS X here.
Not long ago, Yahoo! also proclaimed that Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.1 runs very well on Windows Vista, which makes Yahoo! Widget as totally cross-OS widgets platform that can run on Mac OS X, Win 2000, Win XP and Windows Vista.
You can easily imagine when two giants, Google and Yahoo!, run on the same field. It will make widget or gadget or whatever more interesting. I must agree with Newsweek if this year will become the Year of the Widget.