This blog is in response to a number of requests I received after our presentation at this year's Game Developers conference (GDC 2008) for both an annotated copy of the slides (they directly printed out the slides which mostly just consisted of images and video) and to answer the basic question of why I think widgets are so important? 

I have already blogged about their link with the paradigms of Web 2.0 but it is also the very nature of widgets themselves that makes them interesting. Widgets are becoming increasingly popular in the PC/web landscape with offerings such as iGoogle Gadgets, Opera Widgets, Yahoo Widgets, Apple Dashboard Widgets and Windows Sidebar Gadgets (not to mention widgets incorporated into social networking sites (Facebook being a prime example)and blogs). In our talk Will and I gave a basic definition of a number of qualities of a widget but for me the three most important are:

• Simple. Generally does one thing but does it well. 
• Quick to develop, easy to deploy.Personalisation.
• The widget/environment adaptable to needs of the user. 

The key things here from a developer's perspective are that they are easy develop and deploy but from a users perspective it's in the simplicity and personalisation. Simple should be taken to mean targeted, and fairly easy to use rather than trivial - creating a good user experience given the constraints off many widget platforms can be quite a challenge. Given the nature of the mobile phone interface and its manner of use I believe this elegant simplicity is the essential component of any successful mobile application. Personalisation is another, although arguably secondary, key factor. As in our evolving Web 2.0 world, users increasingly expect to be able to tailor their environment to their personal needs and interests and this extends to applications too.   In terms of implementation, all widgets require a platform or engine of some sort to enable their operation. In mobile we have two general solutions: browser-based widgets and custom widget environments. Within Nokia, these are illustrated by their offerings of WidSets and the S60 Web Run-Time (WRT) respectively. Many of the standards that define a widget platform's operation either borrow from or directly adopt standard web technologies. Browser based solutions (WRT) generally stick more closly to web standards (JavaScript, XML, HTML, CSS etc.) and some people would therefore argue that they are more in keeping with established Web 2.0 paradigms (and therefore preferable in terms of attracting developers). However, in our experience custom environments can provide greater opportunity for developing richer applications and their centralised infrastructure can provide great benefits in terms of distribution, community features etc. From a independent developer's perspective it is the infrastructure of a centralised, custom widget environment, such as WidSets, that is particularly attractive. To illustrate this, consider the graph below which shows the user downloads of our simple WidSets game Bombus: 

The two notable events represent some of the power of utilising your users to rate and rank content rather than parties who may/may not have vested interests e.g. game deck administrator. The first event was the promotion of Bombus on the WidSets client (a featured widget) which provides an initial boost and then the steady download by users. The second key event is when the ratings from the users results in the widget reaching the "top 5 rated" list (after which we experienced lots of new users). Its hard to imagine such a situation without this type of users input as it is increasingly evident people are more inclined to accept the advice of other users.

As we have won two prizes for WidSets development (Bombus and Boom!) and one for WRT (m-footy) I often get asked "which is better"? My answer is always the same they both provide different qualities and I am happy to create for both. Given the use of open standards WRT is hugely attractive to current web developers in that they can be produced very easily and integrated within existing frameworks, whilst Widsets has a good infrastructure but requires a new language be learned by the developer (Helium script) and feels less integrated with the general phone applications. The ideal for me is to combine the positive aspects of both. Perhaps the ability to launch WRT from WidSets (which I understand may be part of the intended evolution) would help in part achieve this end.

With the current beta version of the client, WidSets have introduced ad-supported content with a planned revenue sharing model between WidSets and developers. When this is released, it will provide a great end-to-end solution for developers and a truly user centred perspective? 

So while I will always be a huge advocate of the power of creating very novel native applications( although for me its not an all or nothing debate), for the many simple casual applications we can envisage for mobile why not make them widgets?

BTW Big thanks to Will for the comments and discussions surrounding this blog