Widgetbox – A Review

Like Snipperoo, Widgetbox is a widget platform company that is attempting to wire themselves into every widget installation on the Web. 

Their value proposition to publishers is to try and make it easier for them to discover and manage widgets across their online presences.   If you take the time to install the Widgetbox widget container on your blog, you’ll never have to do it again.

Widgetbox’s value proposition to developers is to provide distribution for their widgets, and to help make it easy for publishers of varying level of technical expertise to put these widgets on their site so that the developer can focus on building the widget.

Applications & Opportunity

I’m not going to spend a lot of time repeating what I said yesterday about the role that widgets are playing in remixing the Web.  One thing I didn’t touch upon is the “age wave” component of all of this.  MySpace has trained an entire generation of Web surfers to be able to plug things into their Web pages.  As these folks migrate off of MySpace and onto more specialized sites, they will expect this same level of customization.

I don’t think this widget stuff is going away any time soon.

The concept of a single platform to manage this process - and the creation of a company that is solely focused on enabling the frictionless flow of widgets – makes a ton of sense to me.

Configuration

Widgetbox is a gorgeous, cleanly designed site.  The widget directory, or Gallery as they call it, is seamlessly integrated into the site.  They make nice use of tabs to allow the user to toggle between the Gallery, and the user control panel (called “My Widgets”)

However, I was a little confused that the first sentence I read on their home page said:

“Widgetbox is an online directory of web widgets for blogs and other web pages.  They work with…”

And it wasn’t the bad grammar that confused me – that happens with companies in launch mode.  It was the fact that their critical “About Us” sentence made no mention of their core business of being a widget management system.  Maybe the current emphasis on the directory has to do with what they see as their first priority as a business - more on this to follow.

I started my configuration process by grabbing one of the featured widgets on their home page.  I was prompted then to set the dimensions of the widget.  After doing that, I clicked a button that said “Get Widget.”

It was only at that point that I got an Ajaxy pop up window that advised me that I needed to put the widget somewhere – either on a widget panel, or directly onto a blog post.

This is what I mean about the widget gallery being integrated into the flow of the widget management system.  The previews and pictures of the widget draw you in, and then, when you grab it, you learn how the core system (panels holding widgets) works.  This process is nicely executed.

Widgets that you grab from the gallery go into a “widget pallet” from which you can drag and drop to build your panel.  Individual widgets can be added and removed, but I didn’t see any way to edit an individual widget on the fly, which was sort of a bummer.  For example, I added a music player to my panel that, annoyingly, had a default setting of autoplay.  I wanted to turn the autoplay component off, but there was no way to go into the widget code from my console.  One of the prices of trying to standardize a process, I guess.

It’s easy to add multiple panels, meaning that you can display different combinations of widgets on your various online presences.

Just for the heck of it, I tried submitting a widget to Widgetbox using the developers’ section.  Surprisingly given the fact that I am not a developer, I didn’t have any problems.  (the widget was later rejected because the outbound links did not open up a new browser)

The widget submission tool provides you with ways to set up your end user customization form (height, width, etc.), and walks you through the process of describing your widget, categorizing it, and uploading a picture that represents it.  Again, this process is very nicely handled.

One point here – should Widgetbox ever offer widgets for sale, they will need some way to authenticate the submitter of the widget.  If money is introduced, it will be a free for all with people submitting other people’s widgets in order to get paid.

Testing

Widgetbox does a couple of very interesting, innovative things in the area of widget implementation that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.

Clicking “Install My Widget” triggers a dropdown menu that lets you choose a destination for your widget panel from each of the big blogging platforms / aggregators such as TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, etc.

Where things get interesting is in the different ways that Widgetbox handles implementation on the various aggregators.

If you select TypePad, a new browser window opens and you are immediately plugged into TypePad’s widget management system.  A preview of your Widgetbox panel shows up immediately, and by checking a box, you can apply your panel to the blog(s) of your choice.  No HTML editing required, and no need to set up a new TypePad TypeList – Widgetbox has done all the implementation work for you.  Very nifty.

If you select MySpace or Xanga (which don’t accept scripts), you are provided with a menu of widget buttons you can put on your MySpace page.  Clicking these buttons will open your widgets in a separate window.  While this clearly isn’t ideal, it’s an interesting way to get around the MySpace restrictions on JavaScript.  I hadn’t seen this approach before.

If you select Blogger as the destination for your panel, the Widgetbox tool does it the old fashioned way by generating a snippet of code that you can plug into your template.

Three different platforms, three different implementation techniques by Widgetbox.

I had no problem implementing my panel on either Blogger or TypePad.  The panel itself is nicely branded, but there is no sign yet of any one click add functionality.

My sense is that the TypePad relationship gives a hint of the direction that Widgetbox would like to go in terms of wiring their platform directly into the big blog aggregators, and removing any need for the end user to wade through code.

Editorial

Widgetbox is impressive.  Even in their very early stages, they seem to be approaching the task of facilitating the free flow of widgets with creativity.  As mentioned earlier, their site design and navigation are beautifully laid out, and they do a great job of using content provided by others (in this case widgets) to draw people in.

The fact that they’ve been able to integrate so quickly into a major blogging platform like TypePad is an important step.

So are people going to use this platform?  I don’t know.  Widgetbox is putting together a heck of a widget directory though, and I have no doubt that both developers and publishers will appreciate all the bells & whistles such as ratings, what’s new, and preview tools.

It’s no accident that the Widgetbox widget directory is tied in so tightly to the platform itself.  Once you have grabbed a widget from the directory, it’s a pretty easy step to go ahead and install the widget – especially if Widgetbox can put together a few more deals like the TypePad one.

So the task at hand seems pretty straightforward; 1) put together the world’s best widget directory to attract developers and publishers alike; 2) blend the directory experience into the platform experience so that using one is using the other; and 3) wire the Widgetbox platform to the big blog aggregators to enable easy implementation.

How hard could that be?  :)

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