Widgets = plugins 2.0

Wow, two days, two major blog players announced the support of Widgets. (SixApart, WordPress) What are these? Is it really something new? Let's take a look.

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What are these widgets?

In this context, they are basically small blocks on your blog that can display various, automatically updated contents, and sometimes provide some interactivity to your visitors.

A Widget is almost like those "1.0" plugins, the difference is that they are easier to install and move around in your template. You can call them "sidebar plugins" - it just doesn't sound so trendy.

Head over to the Typepad Widget Gallery or the Automattic WordPress Widgets page to get full instructions on how to install them on your WordPress or Typepad blog.

What's their future?

I think the buzzword "widget" is much better than the tech-sounding "plugin", so probably they will appear in more blog engines - I think the next one will be MovableType, since SixApart already seem to have invested a lot into these, so why not keep their other product up-to-date too.

March 31, 2006

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