Archives
November 2006
11/30/06
11/28/06
11/28/06
11/22/06
11/21/06
11/21/06
11/20/06
11/20/06
11/17/06
11/16/06
11/15/06
11/13/06
11/13/06
11/9/06
11/9/06
11/9/06
11/9/06
11/8/06
11/8/06
11/8/06
11/7/06
11/7/06
11/6/06
11/6/06
11/6/06
11/6/06
11/6/06
11/6/06
11/6/06
11/6/06
Widgets Live! Keynote - Arlo Rose (Konfabulator/Y! Widgets)
11/6/06
11/5/06
11/2/06
11/1/06
Monday, November 6, 2006
12:51:00 PM EST
Aah, yay, first off an explanation of where the word 'widget' comes from. Arlo Rose wanted to come up with a better way to control "stuff" on your desktop - expanding on the basic Apple concept of putting these things in your system tray.
Then he went through his personal history - he worked with Audion for a while, then went off to Sun, where, to quote, he thought, "what was I thinking?" His project there was canceled, and gave him the time, and inspiration to create Konfabulator. Konfabulator's big thing was to allow people to create little "things" that worked outside of a normal window - they would sit on your desktop. Originally, Konfabulator for Apple only, and was really about the community - people like me who saw this new cool thing and wanted to use it. They asked their developer community what they wanted to be able to expand on the platform, got suggestions, and listened (see...it's important to listen to your community!), updating the platform to be what they really wanted.
Next came Windows. By then Apple was doing Dashboard, and Konfabulator felt that doing a proprietary setup (vs. Dashboard) was better than them. They released the windows version, and soon realized that people don't like to pay for software (I admit, I did, but I'm a wierdo who pays for software). People were pirating the software, and they didn't know how they were going to survive with this great product that they couldn't monitize. But they kept working on the 2.0 version of Konfabulator.
Along came Yahoo!, and Microsoft. Microsoft told them that Widgets would be going into Vista (Longhorn), and asked them to move to Redmond (right outside of Seattle, Washington). They weren't much for Redmond, though, talked a little to Yahoo!, and, of course, went to see what Google was thinking (always check with them all, right?). Ultimately, Yahoo! decided to buy them.
Their first job at Yahoo! was changing the Konfabulator (now the Yahoo! Widget Engine) platform into something that was fully API based, allowing all developers to play with it and make new things.
Yahoo! Widgets are the largest platform out there, with nearly 4,000 third party (user created) widgets. It's fully cross platform, and can access all Yahoo! data (for example, the Y! Widgets I run on my computers access Yahoo! weather and Yahoo! Mail).
Someone asked Arlo what was next - he said that the big question is how far can widgets go? Can they expand beyond the desktop, to manage other applications? Of course, they're a Yahoo! property, so in their case they're thinking accessing Flickr and the like, but I think we're all heading in that direction. How would you like a an AOL widget that lets you manage your blog comments and update your blog? I sure would love one.
Technorati tags: BamBam, Konfabulator, widgets, Widgets Live, Yahoo! Widgets
Written by stephaniebambam Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | 
digg this
12:51:00 PM EST
Widgets Live! Keynote - Arlo Rose (Konfabulator/Y! Widgets)
Then he went through his personal history - he worked with Audion for a while, then went off to Sun, where, to quote, he thought, "what was I thinking?" His project there was canceled, and gave him the time, and inspiration to create Konfabulator. Konfabulator's big thing was to allow people to create little "things" that worked outside of a normal window - they would sit on your desktop. Originally, Konfabulator for Apple only, and was really about the community - people like me who saw this new cool thing and wanted to use it. They asked their developer community what they wanted to be able to expand on the platform, got suggestions, and listened (see...it's important to listen to your community!), updating the platform to be what they really wanted.
Next came Windows. By then Apple was doing Dashboard, and Konfabulator felt that doing a proprietary setup (vs. Dashboard) was better than them. They released the windows version, and soon realized that people don't like to pay for software (I admit, I did, but I'm a wierdo who pays for software). People were pirating the software, and they didn't know how they were going to survive with this great product that they couldn't monitize. But they kept working on the 2.0 version of Konfabulator.
Along came Yahoo!, and Microsoft. Microsoft told them that Widgets would be going into Vista (Longhorn), and asked them to move to Redmond (right outside of Seattle, Washington). They weren't much for Redmond, though, talked a little to Yahoo!, and, of course, went to see what Google was thinking (always check with them all, right?). Ultimately, Yahoo! decided to buy them.
Their first job at Yahoo! was changing the Konfabulator (now the Yahoo! Widget Engine) platform into something that was fully API based, allowing all developers to play with it and make new things.
Yahoo! Widgets are the largest platform out there, with nearly 4,000 third party (user created) widgets. It's fully cross platform, and can access all Yahoo! data (for example, the Y! Widgets I run on my computers access Yahoo! weather and Yahoo! Mail).
Someone asked Arlo what was next - he said that the big question is how far can widgets go? Can they expand beyond the desktop, to manage other applications? Of course, they're a Yahoo! property, so in their case they're thinking accessing Flickr and the like, but I think we're all heading in that direction. How would you like a an AOL widget that lets you manage your blog comments and update your blog? I sure would love one.
Technorati tags: BamBam, Konfabulator, widgets, Widgets Live, Yahoo! Widgets
Written by stephaniebambam Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
11/6/06 1:22 PM
http://journals.aol.com/dougs